Cam Hanes admitting he uses a banned peptide gave a name to something a lot of runners have been hearing about all year. We pulled the science apart on what BPC-157 actually is, what it does, and whether any of it works.
Published: May 20, 2026 2:15 pm
Cam Hanes brought a new acronym into running last month: BPC-157, the peptide he admitted to using in an Instagram comment with Sage Canaday. The 58-year-old had just won his age group at the Eugene Marathon. He said he’d been injecting the peptide as part of his injury recovery. WADA bans it. USADA can hand out a four-year suspension for using it. Canaday has now filed a tip with the agency.
For most runners watching the story play out, the bigger question is simpler. What is this stuff, and why does it seem like every other middle-aged runner is suddenly on it?
What’s actually being sold
A peptide is just a short chain of amino acids, anything under 50. Anything longer is a protein. Insulin is a peptide. Oxytocin is a peptide. They aren’t exotic in themselves.
What’s getting injected by runners and influencers is a narrow slice of that universe. These are synthetic peptides designed or borrowed from natural compounds, sold for purposes the FDA has never approved. They sort into two rough buckets. Healing peptides like BPC-157, TB-500, and GHK-Cu claim to repair tendons, ligaments, and muscle. Growth hormone peptides like CJC-1295 and ipamorelin nudge the pituitary to release more growth hormone and IGF-1. Both categories sit on WADA’s banned list.
The combo you’ll see most often promoted on Instagram is the “Wolverine Stack,” BPC-157 paired with TB-500 for soft tissue recovery. The other common pairing is CJC-1295 with ipamorelin, sold as a way to boost your own growth hormone without injecting HGH directly. Beyond those, there’s GHK-Cu, AOD-9604, MOTS-c, and a dozen others. These are usually sold in stacks, not solo.
So what is BPC-157
BPC stands for Body Protection Compound. It’s a 15-amino acid sequence derived from a protein found in human gastric juice. Croatian researchers in the 1990s were studying why the stomach is so good at healing itself, and BPC-157 is the lab-made version of a fragment of that protein.
The reason runners want it is the mechanism. In animal studies, BPC-157 promotes angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels in tissue that doesn’t get much blood flow on its own, like tendons. It pushes fibroblasts to produce more Type I collagen, the strong organized stuff in a healthy tendon, rather than the weaker scar-tissue Type III. It dampens inflammatory cytokines like IL-6. It upregulates the growth hormone receptor on tendon cells, so they respond more to your own circulating GH. In rats and mice, the effects on tendon and muscle healing have been consistent enough to get sports medicine’s attention.
Animal data is great. Human data barely exists.
As of early 2026, there are three published human studies on BPC-157. All of them are small pilot studies. None are randomized controlled trials. One looked at 12 patients with bladder pain. One looked at 16 patients with knee pain. One was a two-person IV safety study.
That’s the whole human dataset. There’s no trial in runners. No trial for Achilles tendinopathy. No trial for plantar fasciitis. Athletes injecting BPC-157 are working off animal data and the testimonials of other athletes who tried it and felt better.
Safety, and the gray market
Short-term, the small human studies that exist haven’t flagged anything serious. The long-term picture in people is essentially unknown. The same angiogenesis that helps a damaged tendon can in theory help a tumor get a blood supply, which is why oncologists pay attention to this mechanism even though no study has shown BPC-157 causes cancer.
Sourcing is the more immediate problem. Most of the peptide vials being injected by runners come from compounding pharmacies, gray-market resellers, or Chinese suppliers selling direct. A Texas testing lab found 8% of submitted peptide products were contaminated, with purity in vials sold as BPC-157 ranging from 82% to 100%, and some vials not containing any BPC-157 at all. At a 2025 longevity conference in Las Vegas, two women ended up on ventilators after being injected with peptides the FDA had flagged as unsafe. That’s on top of the wider supplement contamination problem that already catches clean athletes out under WADA’s strict liability rules.
What the rules say, and what most runners actually need
BPC-157 has been on WADA’s prohibited list since January 2022 under category S0, non-approved substances. It’s banned at all times, in and out of competition. A first violation carries a default four-year ban, which would lock you out of Boston, every World Marathon Major, Eugene, and most ultras worth running. Doping bans aren’t quick to come back from. CJC-1295, ipamorelin, TB-500, and most of the other peptides on the standard influencer stack are banned too. USADA acts on tips, which is exactly what Canaday filed.
The honest read for any runner thinking about peptides because an injury won’t quit: the animal data is interesting, the human data is thin, the supply chain isn’t safe, and the boring standard treatments with decades of human trials behind them still work. Progressive loading, heavy slow resistance, time. If you want a legal supplement edge that actually has data behind it, look at sodium bicarbonate or creatine. They’re not exciting. They also won’t get you a four-year ban from racing the events you train all year for.