If you're up on the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI), you may recognize GHK-Cu as Copper tripeptide-1.

If you're not, that's all right. But you may want to consider using GHK-Cu copper peptides as part of your skincare routine. They're becoming popular in personal care products because they not only help with the healing of skin wounds, they increase collagen and reduce inflammation.

And that's just for starters.

What are GHK-Cu Copper Peptides

Despite the artificial-looking name, GHK-Cu is a natural substance. It was first isolated from blood plasma, but it's also found in urine and saliva. 

It has a strong chemical affinity for the element copper, and so appears to modulate the uptake of copper by our cells. Copper is a critical element our bodies need to function. It plays an important role in many critical biochemical processes in our bodies. 

These include blood clotting, cellular respiration, use of antioxidants to defend against free radicals, iron metabolism, detoxification, production of melanin, oxygenation, embryonic development, cell signaling, neurotransmission and formation of connective tissues.

(That last one is important for skin care and regeneration.)

One of its signaling functions is to tell stem cells to repair other cells. This requires a certain level of copper, which GHK-Cu controls. Stem cells are what your skin needs to regenerate itself.

Without enough GHK-Cu, the stem cells won't have enough copper. Without enough copper, they can't repair those other cells. That leaves you with old, damaged cells.

Peptides are small proteins, so GHK-Cu is called a copper peptide because it's so closely associated with copper. In 1973, Loren Pickart was the first to isolate GHK-Cu.

Benefits of GHK-Cu

1. Anti-excess fibrinogen

One of the first effects observed of GHK-Cu came indirectly.

Liver tissue samples were taken from patients aged 60 to 80 years old who had an increased level of fibrinogen. Fibrinogen helps your blood clot, so you want to have enough - but not too much. 

Too much fibrinogen can produce clots inside your blood vessels, blocking blood to your brain or lungs. Excess fibrinogen is associated with heart attacks, cancer, stroke, and rheumatoid arthritis.

When researchers placed liver tissue samples from elderly patients into blood drawn from young adults, the liver cells greatly improved their function, until they were almost young again themselves.

Why did blood from young adults have that effect on elderly liver tissue? That research led to the discovery of GHK-Cu, and its many benefits for health - including your skin.

2. Anti-inflammation

Inflamed skin is red, dry, itchy, and irritable. That's not healthy, and it doesn't look good.

One of the properties of GHK-Cu is inhibiting inflammation. That helps your skin remain clear, smooth, and moist. 

It feels nice to you. It feels nice to anyone touching your skin.

3. Stimulates production of important skin connective tissues

Collagen is the most well-known of your skin's components. It's the largest single type of skin tissue. It's the connective material holding your skin together. 

And, of course, it declines with age, causing wrinkles and sagging skin.

GHK-Cu increases it.

It also increases elastin in your skin. That's another critical connective tissue. It's sort of like the metal rebar implanted in the concrete of your skin, which is the collagen.

It also increases glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). These are long chains of unbranched polysaccharides. Examples you've probably heard of include hyaluronic acid and chondroitin.

They protect the health of connective tissues, such as collagen. GAGs are a key part of your skin's Extra-Cellular Matrix (ECM), and they're critical for retaining water in your skin, so it's properly moisturized. GAGs themselves also help lower inflammation.

GHK-Cu supports dermal fibroblasts.

Dermal fibroblasts are cells within your skin, derived from stem cells, in the dermis layer. They generate connective tissue.

They create the connective tissues that bind the different layers of your skin together. Plus, they produce the various kinds of tissues that form the Extra-Cellular Matrix. 

4. Inhibits matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs).

Your skin's worst long-term enemy is, of course, the UVB radiation in sunlight. One way it causes photoaging, the sun damaging your skin, is through triggering the overexpression of MMPs.

That leads to the degradation of the collagen in your skin. That, as everybody concerned with the health and beauty of their skin knows, causes the skin to sink, sag, and wrinkle.

GHK-Cu helps to control MMPs, thereby limiting the damage they cause.

5. Modulate the expression of good and bad genes

For decades, scientists believed GHK-Cu worked only because it modulated copper levels. Since 2010, however, we've realized it also regulates gene expression.

That is, if you have genes that adversely affect your skin's health, GHK-Cu downregulates them. Therefore, those genes can't hurt you.

Conversely, you probably also have genes that increase your skin's health and beautiful appearance. GHK-Cu upregulates those genes, so you get the health benefits they produce.

Why You May Want to Add Copper Peptides to Your Skin

Your need for GHK-Cu copper peptides goes up as you age, because our natural supply goes down. Around age 20, we have 200 ng/ml in our plasma. By age 60, that's just 80 ng/ml.

How to Use GHK-Cu

It's now a popular ingredient in personal care products, so read the labels of your favorite brands. Or invest in a separate GHK-Cu product. For serums, you apply on your skin twice a day, a 4% concentration of GHK-Cu is suggested.

A few oral supplements of GHK-Cu are available. I'm skeptical whether the body will digest GHK-Cu and send it, intact, from your stomach to your skin, but future data may prove that's effective. Right now, by far the largest number of GHK-Cu products are serums to apply directly onto your skin.

You can also obtain GHK-Cu online as an injection. Injecting yourself with anything comes with a significant risk of infection and allergic reactions. And you can't even be certain what you're injecting into your blood. Beware.

If you want GHK-Cu injections, talk to your doctor to learn whether that's appropriate for your situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_peptide_GHK-Cu

https://www.verywellhealth.com/glycosaminoglycans-5092414

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=167&contentid=factor_i

https://driphydration.com/blog/ghk-cu-retinol-skin-care/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4508379/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073405/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermal_fibroblast

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0223523424000321

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVTk7utqjHc

https://neuroganhealth.com/blogs/news/ghk-cu-dosage