KPV is the last three amino acids of alpha-MSH, a hormone your body already produces, snipped off and used on its own. The parent hormone has anti-inflammatory effects, and laboratory work suggests this fragment retains some of that activity without the pigmentation effects the full hormone causes. Most of the interest concerns the gut, where cell and animal studies indicate it may calm inflammation in the intestinal lining. That is the entire evidence base. No human trial of any design has been completed, so the step from a promising signal in cultured cells to a benefit in a person with inflammatory bowel disease remains untaken. It is sold widely as a gut-healing treatment, which is a considerable distance ahead of what anyone has actually demonstrated.