KPV The Best Anti-Inflammatory Peptide Youve Never Heard Of

0:10 Hey everybody, this is Hunter Williams. I hope you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world. Today's video is going to be all about the peptide KPV. So I honestly feel KP is one of the most underrated peptides out there. And I've made a video on my channel before, but I just wanted to make a new one. One was some more concrete data than I probably had in the first one. And then a little bit more of my own personal experience added into it from the 1st time I had made one and when I'd used it previously. So I'm a huge fan of KPV.

0:40 Honestly, when we look at BPC 157, which is an amazing peptide, I think KP is right up there with it and how well it works for a lot of the same things, but even that much more so from these side of gut health and skin health. So what I'm going to do today is just do a deeper dive on KPV than I already did. And I know the video on my channel prior is probably over a year old at this point. So I am a huge fan of KPB. I don't think it gets enough attention, but hopefully this video will change that.

1:10 What's pretty cool about it is it actually comes from the melano cordon peptide family, such as Melanotan-1, PT-141. It actually works a lot different. We'll talk about that a I love it not only for inflammation and joints, inflammation in the gut, but also for skin health. And you can use it orally, topically, or injectably. So it is one of the more versatile peptides out there in terms of delivery mechanism. That being said, if you want to check out the peptide cheat sheet, I've got the dosing for KPV on the Peptide Cheat Sheet,

1:42 exactly how much water to add to a bottle, drawn to an insulin syringe and all that good stuff. So check it out. That link should be in the description. And then also too, if you want to join the best community of biohackers and peptide enthusiasts on the planet, head over to fully optimized health links will always be. The description for that. All right. I am Hunter Williams and today is all about KPV. And my question is, is this the best anti-inflammatory peptide yet?

2:12 Well, let's find out. So KPB is a short tripeptide made up of lysine, proline and valine. and it's actually derived from the hormone alpha melanocytes stimulating hormone. Like I said, so alpha Alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone, I'll call that alpha MSH for short, is a 13 amino acid peptide produced from the larger precursor POMC and is known as a melanocortin because of its role in skin pigmentation. Doesn't really apply to KPV, but we'll go into that. Besides affecting melanocytes, researchers discovered that alpha MSH has a strong anti-inflammatory effect influencing immune cells and reducing inflammatory signals.

2:50 Actually, in the early 1990s, scientists found that the C-terminal 3 amino acids of alpha-MSH The sequence KPV carried most of this inflammatory message. So, in fact, most anti-inflammatory activity of alpha-MSH can be attributed to its C-terminal tripeptide, KP-V, which showed similar or even greater antiflammatory effects than the full hormone itself. This discovery identified KPB as the minimal active fragment of Alpha-MSH, responsible for immunomodulatory actions without the hormone's pigmentation effects.

3:24 When we say immunomodulation, think about this. Some people's immune system is suppressed and underactive, and some people is actually overactive. And that's where we'll see a lot of these autoimmune diseases. KPV works to modulate the immune systems. So being back in the balance to where it's functioning effectively, it fights off what we need to, but it doesn't overact and attack the body in case of something that you may get injected from the government or in a case auto-immune disease. KPV is one of several melanocortin-related peptides studied for therapeutic potential.

3:55 It's in the class PT-141, Melanotan-1 and Melantan 2. And over the past few decades, it has transitioned from a pretty obscure peptide to one that is a very promising anti-inflammatory agent. Hopefully, I can just be one piece of the puzzle in helping bring this to the world and helping people experience the benefits of it. Let's look at some of the mechanisms behind KPV. So it exerts its effects at the molecular and cellular level by modulating the body's inflammatory pathways. Notably, it does not work the same as the full alpha-MSH hormone.

4:28 Alpha-MSH actually binds to melanocortin receptors like MC1R on skin cells or MC3R, MC4R are on immune cells, which triggers cyclic AMP signaling. However, KPV lacks the amino acid motif required to bind to these receptors, so it does not activate melanochortin receptors or increase CAMP. In fact, experiments show that KPVI fails to bond to the MC1 receptor and does NOT induce CAMPs, yet it still produces the anti-inflammatory effects through a different route. So this means KPv's mechanism is independent of the classic melanochortine receptor pathways.

5:01 This is what I was saying is it is like those, but it isn't as well, and it works completely different, And it won't make you tan if you're worried about that. KPV works inside cells to shut down inflammation at its root. After administration, it can intertarget cells, for example, intestinal or immune cells via peptide transporters, notably PEPT1. a transporter upregulated in inflamed tissues. So once inside, KPV interferes with the key inflammatory signaling molecules and one major action is that it blocks the NF-kappa-B pathway,

5:36 which is a central switch for turning on genes that produce pro-inflammatory cytokines. KPV has been shown to prevent the activation and nuclear translocation of NF kappa B in response to inflammatory stimuli. Basically, that is a fancy way of saying is that it shuts down these pro-inflammatory cytokines that are swimming through the body as response to trauma, stress, and all the things that cause inflammation. Let's look at how it works even further. So it helps keep NF kappa B out of the cell nucleus to prevent some of negative effects of that.

6:09 It inhibits production of inflammatory meteors like TNF and interleukins. And also interacts with the interlukin-1 system. Antagonizes inter-leucin 1 beta activity and blocks its effects again to help prevent this inflammation and reduce inflammation. Then it induces higher levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines so it reduces adhesion molecules and limits immune cell migration into tissues, again, which is potentially causing a lot of inflammation. What is also pretty cool about it is it has direct antimicrobial activity so it can inhibit the growth of certain pathogens independently of white blood cells.

6:44 It also has a role in some of these more ancient evolutionary pathways. So the antimikrobio effect of KPB may relate to ancient roles of melanocortin peptides and skin immunity, which was pretty good because obviously if you look back, our skin was built to protect us and protect the inside of the body. Also, like I mentioned, there is no skin darkening side effects, so it accomplishes all these without causing skin-darkening and side-effects like Melanotan 1 or Melantan 2. And it works intracellularly. So it inhibits pro-inflammatory pathways and promotes, as in the anti-flammatory, antimicrobial environment intrasellulary within the cell,

7:17 which is pretty cool, Like we were saying, discarding the nucleus. There are a number of preclinical studies and test tubes and animal models to explore KPV's effects. Because of the nature of it, you will likely never see it studied at a large scale clinically because, again, it is just a natural peptide amino acid sequence that would be pretty hard to patent. So let's look at this. A 2003 pharmacology study compared KPB to other alpha MSH fragments and mites with induced peritonitis, which is basically just abdominal inflammation, stomach inflammation.

7:47 and it found that systemic KPV injections significantly reduce neutrophil influx, which is the white blood cell migration to the inflamed site comparable to full alpha MSH. So notably the anti-inflammatory effect of KPB was still observed in mutant mice that lack functional MC1 receptors, confirming that KPV works even when melanochortin receptors are absent. So this research concluded that the C-terminal MSH peptide KPB exhibits an anti-inflammatory effect that is clearly different from that of the core MSh

8:18 peptides and is unlikely to mediate the effects through melanochortine receptors, highlighting that novel mode of action and also meaning that you don't need sunlight for it to work, although sunlight is beneficial. We also have a landmark study in 2008 from gastroenterology. It investigated KPV in the context of inflammatory bowel disease, otherwise known as IBD. And the study showed that oral KPB administration alleviated experimental colitis in mice, reducing colon inflammation and tissue damage. In a study mice given KP, which was mixed in drinking water in about a hundred nanobols per milliliter concentration had about 50% less neutral activity

8:53 in a colon and much lower levels of inflammatory cytokines compared to untreated mice. And the histology of the colon also confirmed that KPV treated mice had significantly reduced inflammatory injury. This work shed light on how KPB enters cells. So they found that the peptides anti-inflammatory effect was mediated by a PEPT1, which was that peptide transporter protein we were talking about. And by using radio labeled KP, they confirmed the immune and intestinal cells take up KP through Pept1 allowing the peptide to reach intracellular targets,

9:24 pretty cool. And so blocking PEPT-1 reduced KPV's effectiveness, suggesting a transport-dependent mechanism. And, so this was important because it indicates KPF can be effective when delivered orally if it reaches the gut where Pept-T1 is present. So it concluded that KPB might be a new therapeutic agent for IBD, especially when taken oraly. Wink, wink, you can find that at certain places if you want to, if know what I mean. Let's look in some more of these studies. So in two different mouse models of colitis, again, KPV treatment led to faster recovery, less weight loss, and improved colon healing.

9:57 And KPT treated mice inflammatory markers like myeloperoxidase, otherwise known as MPO, in the colon were roughly cut in half, indicating a strong dampening of the inflammation there. And researchers have even experimented with advanced delivery methods. One 2020 study created hyaluronic acid nanoparticles to carry KPV to the colon, and these nanопarticle enhance mucosal healing and protection of the gut lining in an ulcerative colitis model. And such studies underscore that therapeutic KPB use and GI inflammation is paving the pathway for humans to benefit from it.

10:31 Also too, when we look at skin and lung inflammation, KPV has also been promising in studies. So an in vitro study on human bronchial epithelial cells found that KPB can suppress inflammation triggered by viral infection of lungs. And also to its significantly inhibit NF kappa B activation and interleukin 8 release and airway cells exposed to respiratory virus. It also reduced the activity of MMP9, which is an enzyme involved in tissue remodeling and lung inflammation. And, also in the same study, the authors compared KPV with other melanocortin peptide and noted that while this melanocortin peptide required an intact

11:10 mc3 receptor to work, KPV did not so it worked through its receptor independent mechanism inside the cells. So this shows that even airway inflammation such as asthma or bronchitis, kpv can directly quench inflammatory signals without needing classical receptors. Also too, there has been a lot of research into it around a wound healing and tissue repair. And I think this is where it's cool because unlike PPC-157, it is doing all these things to help with kind of an autoimmune activity, but then also too it helping from the injury slash wound healings side of things.

11:43 In a journal of surgical research article, analogs of KPV were found to enhance NFKB suppression even further, hinting that modified versions might yield stronger effects or at least give pharmaceutical companies a reason to patent them or least do the research. So we'll see about that. But in an animal wound healing study, researchers tested KPB on corneal eye injury. I thought this was pretty cool. They applied KPVI drops to abrasions on rabbit cornea at concentrations of one, five or 10 milligrams per milliliter four times per day. and results were striking. Within 60 hours of administering the eye drops on the rabbits, 100% of the KPV treated corneas had fully re-epithelialized or healed,

12:20 where none of them controls had healed in that time. So KPT treated eyes healed as well as those treated with nitric oxide donor, suggesting KPB significantly sped up regeneration of cornea epithelia. When we look at tissue repair, especially eye repair but other areas of body, KPD can promote tissue pair possibly by controlling inflammation at the wound site and influencing factors that actually help with nitric oxide availability. So separate experiments with full-length alpha MSH and skin wounds also should enhance healing and reduce scar formation at the wound site,

12:52 reinforcing that MCR peptides can improve wound outcomes. That being said, what can we actually use it for? I think the biggest thing, like I mentioned, is IBD or IBS, inflammatory bowel disease. So KPV offers a novel approach by locally dampling inflammation in the gut specifically, especially if it's administered orally, reducing colon inflammation and mouse studies colitis. And this non-systemic action works mainly in a gut, potentially translating to fewer side effects compared to general immunosuppressants. It also works alongside other things for IBD.

13:23 Then we could use it in dogs too, because dogs have a relatively similar stomach to humans, and there has been studies to show that it works in Then we look at skin inflammation. I think this is a big thing for other people and I will actually speak to my own personal testament with it. But because skin is an accessible target, KVV can actually be applied topically as a cream or a gel to directly benefit skin tissue. So it has been proposed as treatment for psoriasis and although I have not dealt with psoriasis myself, I've heard countless people say that either injecting it or applying it topicaly helps really well.

13:55 to help get rid of the red scaly patches. And then there's also psoriatic skin lesions have high levels of TNF alpha and other inflammatory signals that KPV could counteract. In fact, a case report described in a patient filing noted that a patients with a long history of severe psoriasis showed reduced inflammation and scaling when treated with KPB indicating clinical improvement and although we don't have large-scale studies in patients yet, some dermatologists use it and it is cool because it doesn't' have a pigmentary effect or affects skin tone or anything like that.

14:26 So you definitely can use in creams for eczema. I don' t know of any company that sells a cream but you could probably figure out a way to make one if you just order it yourself. or contact dermatitis. Now I will say before I move on that I have used KPV to successfully deal with acne. So acne, and I've talked about this before, has something is something that I've struggled with for the better part of my life. And when I was younger, it was on my face. As I got into my later twenties, and although I'm all this know this about peptides, this, that, the other, I still struggled acne on shoulders and my

15:01 back for whatever reason. This was really independent of any sort of hormones or anything I doing. It was before hormones, after hormones. So it wasn't really, in my opinion, related that much to the hormones but I noticed through running cycles of KPV, dramatic reduction in the inflammation. acne in my back so I will just personally attest to the wonders of it and again using it at a pretty low dose and it's pretty relatively affordable way better than anything else I'd ever done or medication I've ever used from a dermatologist to help with my acne.

15:34 When we look at some of the mechanisms to help with the skin or wound healing or dermatology conditions, we have the IL-10 and IL1 reduction. So it creates a healing conducive environment by modulating the inflammatory cytokines that cause a lot of these skin issues. Obviously too, it has the antimicrobial properties like we mentioned before. It directly reduces bacterial burden and wounds or things like acne, which inhibit pathogens like staph, infection. It also works to reduce scars by lessening the fibrosis and modulating collagen deposition on the skin.

16:05 it also helps fine tune healing to minimize hypertrophic scars and keloids for improved cosmetic outcomes and improves collagen organization so it promotes smaller less raised scars with better collagen and organization in the wound site. And then again, we can use this topically for things like acne, eczema, and psoriasis to reduce inflammation and irritation. I will say I actually didn't use the topical formulation of KPV, I probably should have made some myself, but actually just injected it and injecting it for a few weeks massively improved acne that I had been struggling with for awhile. So it's also naturally occurring and gentle on the skin, so you can it long term, especially topally.

16:38 Injection wise, you probably want to cycle off and I'll talk about that. but it definitely is a pro-healing peptide and it fights inflammation infection without immunosuppressive effects like antibiotics would have on you. So we can use it for ocular inflammatory disorders. Again, those eye drops, which would be pretty easy to make, you could just take lyophilized KPV, add in some blaze eye-drops into the vial and then pull that back out and use to drop in your eye. could use it for that. We can use for corneal ulcers and ocular inflammation.

17:08 Obviously, like I mentioned, when we inject it or take it early, we can us for asthmatic inflammation and lung injury, which I think a lot of people still struggle with to this day from things that happened five years ago. But we also have assistance in severe inflammatory states. So we could use KPV in conditions like lung inflammation from the flu or something like that. And also too, I didn't want to go without saying this for arthritis and inflammatory pain. When I think of KPB, think about all these things first, but you can actually inject it into an injury site or into a site that you may have arthritis

17:39 or tendonitis or with great benefit. And I think for people that are using BPC 157, maybe you've been using that for 12 weeks. So you have been BTC and TB 500 together for twelve weeks, you could switch to doing KPV, hit a completely different pathway to help with the inflammation and help the repair of the collagen and the tendons and ligaments at the site and then also not have to stay on Bpc long term. I always think it's a good idea to throw that in there. You can even mix it with BPc and Tb 500. But we can definitely inject it subcutaneously to help with systemic inflammation from things like rheumatoid arthritis.

18:12 But if you have arthritis or pain in a certain area, I would actually try injecting KPV, especially if tried BPC. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, but you could definitely give KPB a run. The cool thing about KPV, especially relative to some other peptides, it has a very favorable safety profile. There are no hormonal side effects. And as always, we could always have an injection site reaction. In my experience, KPB does not burn and does have any sort of injection reaction, but again, I'm N of one, so I can't speak for you, But it is compatible with a lot of other things and is non-toxic.

18:43 So very safe. Now, when we look at the dosage, I have the oral on here. So the world doses is typically somewhere like 500 micrograms a day, and you can even go up to three milligrams a days. What they did was around 30 to 40 milligrams of KP beer per liter of water. However, when we translate that to humans, I would say the upper end is a few milligrams per day. Like I said, three milligrams. So if you happen to have something with oral capsules that have 500 micrograms per capsule, you could really do six, maybe even eight of those capsuls per.

19:16 Depending on the severity of the gut distress. And I wouldn't say for gut to stress, oral KPV is going to be the best injectable KPB will work too, but I expect you to get all of the skin benefits from the oral formulation, other than the indirect ones that may come from improving gut health. But I would say for the most part, KPV orally is best for gut, and then I'll talk about just injecting right here. It can be done via a sub-q injection. And as far as that goes, I like anywhere from like 250 micrograms to one milligram, depending on the severity of the issue.

19:52 So for me, started really low at 250 micrograms and within a few weeks I noticed a massive difference from that. But if you have really severe colitis or ulcerative colitus or IBD, you could go as high as one milligrams. I'd say somewhere around 250 to 500 might be a good starting spot. So I always say you can do 500 micrograms in the morning, five days on, two days off for eight weeks in a row and get a really, really good response. But again, if you have a torn shoulder, you might be benefiting more by injecting up to one milligram and then you could do that two to three times per week.

20:22 So just kind of depends on your preference, but I'd say 250 micro grams to 1 milligram. And then over the course of eight or so, or you should notice a massive difference in whatever it is you're trying to heal. some people too they like a little bit bigger of a dose less frequently so if you only want to inject two to three times a week you could do like one to one and a half milligrams and then if don't mind injecting like me every day or you have your peptide pins that you use to make it really easy you do 250 micrograms in the am or pm or 250 microns once a day 500 micro grams once day so I hate giving blanket recommendations.

20:56 Obviously, I do that on the peptide Chi-Chi, but it just kind of depends on nature of it. But I think 250 micrograms is a good starting point and then you can work your way up from there. So it kind depends of the severity of condition. If it is more severe, you'd want to do it that. Now for skin creams, and I'm not a master of making skin cream, in the rabbit study, well, let me say this, for the eye drops in rabbit studies, they used concentrations of 1 to 10 milligrams per milliliter. So that's probably what I would do. You don't need a huge amount. So if you wanted to get a five milligram vial Figure out how to Get 10 mls of water mixed in that five-milligram thing and then just drop a couple drops

21:33 in your eyes You'd be totally fine to do that But for skin creams, a typical formulation might be five milligrams of KPV per 10 milliliters of cream. And then you apply just a little dab of that cream one to two times per day on the affected areas, whether that's with acne or eczema. I would actually do that in conjunction with injecting it too, just based on my own personal experience. But when using it topically for psoriasis or eczema, patients might apply it like a regular medicated cream to red patches with improvement often noted after a few weeks. I would give it a week. And then also too, if you have wound healing, scarring, anything like that, KPV gel or cream might be applied in a thin layer of the wound bed after cleaning

22:08 typically once a day and covered with a dressing. Then like I said, typically for the eyes, you could do 0.1 milligrams per milliliter and that's shown benefit. So again, just be careful with that. I'm not going to show you guys how to do eye drops. Taylor actually has a video on her channel showing you how make BPC eye-drops, which is actually pretty easy. And maybe I'll do that one day in the future, but that's pretty much it for KPV. I am a huge fan of it. It's so versatile and so powerful. But that is it for the slides. And that's my updated 2025 video of KPV.

22:40 I'm a huge fan of this. Again, I think it's one of the more underrated peptides. It's definitely one more, one the most cost-effective peptide out there in the research world today. Everyone can benefit from it, even if it is just a couple of times a year that you use it to help with gut health. Because I believe more of us have inflamed guts than not because of that fact that we are exposed to environmental toxins, glyphosate, all those things on a regular basis. So I know using KPV for me the biggest benefit systemically was the skin benefits dealing with acne but then also to the gut health benefits I noticed

23:10 that made my bowel movements much more regular and more enjoyable to say the least. Not to end it on the note of bowel movement but I do love KPB for all of the systemic anti-inflammatory benefits it has and I think it's right out there with BPC 157 and TB 500, and what's cool about it is it works through a different mechanism. So in terms of cycling on, cycling off, we can throw it in off cycles or we could use it alongside to hit a difference pathway to minimize the amount of inflammation we have in the body or maximize the information we are suppressing.

23:42 Hopefully that was helpful to you guys. I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, thoughts, comments down below. Let me know if this was a good one, if it was help for you. And as always, I close out every video. Thank you so much. It is a dream come true to be able to bring this information to you. Hopefully that comes across in my tone and how I convey these messages. But I really, really from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much for giving me the platform to do this. And as the channel continues to grow, as companies that we work with continue to growth, and we just spread the knowledge on peptides, it really is my goal to give this as many people as possible.

24:14 Because there are things out there like KPV that are non-traditional treatments that really have an amazing profound impact on people's lives. And I know for a fact they have on mine so much. And that's why I get so excited to bring these messages to you guys. So thank you for tuning in. I look forward to your feedback on this one. Don't forget, check out the Peptide Cheat Sheet and Fully Optimized Health, the best group in the world down below.