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RQS Comparison

Recovery Peptides Compared

The recovery-peptide field is defined by how far community enthusiasm runs ahead of the research. These three are the most discussed, and ranked by evidence quality they separate more than the hype suggests, with the newest and most heavily marketed sitting last.

#1
TB-500
Recovery & Performance
41
/100
Limited Evidence
#2
BPC-157
Recovery & Performance
20
/100
Weak Evidence
#3
PDA
Recovery & Performance
19
/100
Insufficient Evidence

How they compare across dimensions

Each dimension on its own scale, all three compounds side by side. TB-500 leads most dimensions, but all three are held down by the same missing human trials.
BPC-157TB-500PDA
Study Design/ 25
Tied
BPC
5
TB
5
PDA
5
Sample Size/ 20
TB highest
BPC
0
TB
4
PDA
0
Replication/ 20
TB highest
BPC
5
TB
10
PDA
5
Journal Impact Factor/ 15
TB highest
BPC
4
TB
10
PDA
4
Funding Independence/ 10
TB highest
BPC
1
TB
7
PDA
4
Population Diversity/ 5
Tied
BPC
0
TB
0
PDA
0
Researcher h-Index/ 5
Tied
BPC
5
TB
5
PDA
1

How they differ

All three are healing and recovery peptides, and all three share the category's defining trait: the human evidence is thin to absent. TB-500 comes out ahead on research quality, with somewhat broader preclinical work in stronger journals, which is enough for Limited. BPC-157 lands at Weak, its enormous community following well ahead of its controlled human data.

Pentadeca Arginate is the one worth watching. It is marketed as a BPC-157 successor, an "upgrade" with a similar healing story, and it is the newest of the three. But it scores lowest, at Insufficient, precisely because there is almost no research on PDA specifically. The reputation it borrows is BPC-157's; the independent evidence base behind PDA itself is nearly empty.

That is the honest orientation for this category. If you are choosing by research quality, TB-500 is the best-evidenced and PDA the least, with BPC-157 in between, but the whole cluster sits low because none of them has the human trials that would move it up. The gap between the marketing ("proven recovery") and the evidence ("mostly preclinical") is the single most useful thing to understand here.

None of this says the compounds do not work. It says the research that would tell us has largely not been done yet, and that a newer compound wearing an older one's reputation, as PDA does with BPC-157, deserves particular skepticism until its own evidence catches up.

What this comparison does and does not tell you
The Research Quality Score grades the quality of the published clinical research behind each compound. All three scores are held down by the near-absence of human trials; animal and in vitro evidence may be stronger than the numbers suggest, and PDA in particular is too new to have much research of any kind. The score does not measure safety, efficacy, or whether any compound works. Nothing here is medical advice.