Intra-Articular Injection Of Peptides For Joint Pain | BPC 157 And TB 500 for Arthritis

Working in pain management, we see patients all the time with painful joint arthritis. The standard of care treatment options are limited and include things like medications, corticosteroid injections, and joint replacements. Orthobiologics are exciting and have been shown to be helpful for pain and help slow the degenerative process, but the limiting factor with that can be the cost anywhere from $500 to $5,000 for the procedure. So we're always on the lookout for some new and innovative treatment options. Peptides have been gathering interest in the realm of regenerative medicine. Overall, the evidence supporting peptides for injury recovery is limited and mostly found in animal studies. In 2021, there was a retrospective study in the Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine Journal. This study looked at injecting peptides into knees in 16 patients of either body protection compound 157, also called BPC-157, alone or combined with thymocin beta 4, also called TB4. So BPC-157 in animal models has been shown to help with repairing tendons, ligaments, muscles, nerves, and bones. TB4 has a variety of roles in the body, but it has been seen to help decrease inflammatory markers and pain. In this study, they were able to show 90% of their patients had improvement in pain, 75% had increased mobility, 60% of patients had an improvement in sleep. The BPC-157 alone group showed that around 60% of their patients had a long-term relief up to 6 to 12 months, and the combined group, about 50% of their patients had long-term relief in that 6 to 12 months range. And for comparison, when we do a corticosteroid injection, typically we hope for around 3 months, but usually we're seeing only a few weeks of relief with a corticosteroid injection into a joint. Now, for perspective, most of the animal trials showed that there was no significant difference between injecting the peptide in the abdomen subcutaneously versus in the site of injury. Anecdotally, there's some thought that it might help injecting the site of injury. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future as we see more human trials with these different peptides. Keep in mind, peptides are not FDA approved for the treatment of any condition.