The short version.
If you read nothing else, read this. The whole guide in a handful of bullets.
- What it is: tesamorelin is a synthetic analog of GHRH, the hormone your brain uses to ask the pituitary for growth hormone. It is FDA-approved as Egrifta for HIV-related abdominal fat.
- What people run it for: reducing deep visceral belly fat, and a general growth hormone bump for body recomposition and recovery. The strong evidence is on the visceral-fat use.
- Typical dose: 2 mg subcutaneously once daily, the approved dose, usually injected in the evening.
- Routes: subcutaneous injection into the belly is the only practical route. It is not an oral peptide.
- Cycle: often run 5 days on, 2 days off, in blocks of a few months, rather than continuously.
- Honest caveat: the strong human evidence is narrow (HIV-associated belly fat). General fat-loss and anti-aging use is off-label and far less studied. Research vials are sold for research use only, and this is not medical advice.
Quick reference.
| Typical dose | 2 mg subcutaneously once daily |
|---|---|
| Routes | Subcutaneous injection into the belly (only practical route) |
| Frequency | Once a day, often 5 days on then 2 days off |
| Cycle length | Blocks of a few months, then a break |
| Best for | Reducing visceral belly fat, modest growth hormone support |
What is Tesamorelin?
Tesamorelin is a peptide, which simply means a small chain of amino acids, the same building blocks that make up the proteins in your body. It is a stabilized, synthetic version of growth hormone-releasing hormone, usually shortened to GHRH, the natural signal your brain sends to tell the pituitary gland to release growth hormone.
That distinction matters. Tesamorelin does not put growth hormone into you. It nudges your own pituitary to make and release more of its own GH, in the natural pulsing rhythm the body normally uses. That is a gentler approach than injecting synthetic GH directly, and it is part of why it has been studied as a real medicine.
It is one of the few peptides on this site with a genuine FDA approval. Under the brand name Egrifta, it is approved to reduce excess abdominal fat in people with HIV-associated lipodystrophy. The version sold by research vendors arrives as a freeze-dried white powder in a small sealed vial.
Worth saying plainly: that FDA approval is narrow. It covers one specific population and one specific problem, deep belly fat in HIV lipodystrophy. The general fat-loss, body-recomposition, and anti-aging uses people discuss online are off-label and much less studied. Research vials are sold strictly for research use only. We get into what that means further down.
How it works in the body.
You do not need a biology degree to follow this. Here is the simple picture, then a little more for the curious.
The core idea is that tesamorelin works upstream, at the control switch for your own growth hormone, rather than acting as growth hormone itself. It does this through a few overlapping mechanisms that show up repeatedly in the research.
- GHRH signaling. Tesamorelin binds the GHRH receptor in the pituitary, the same receptor your natural GHRH uses, and prompts your own growth hormone to be released in pulses rather than a flat, constant level.
- Higher IGF-1. That extra growth hormone raises IGF-1, the downstream hormone that carries much of GH's effect. Rising IGF-1 is the marker researchers track, and it is also why glucose and tumor-growth questions come up.
- Visceral fat loss. The best-documented effect of all this is a drop in visceral adipose tissue, the deep fat packed around the organs, which is the harder, more metabolically harmful kind of belly fat.
How to take it: routes of administration.
Tesamorelin is an injectable peptide, and unlike some it is not a meaningful oral option, so the real choice is just where on the body you inject. The approved and standard route is subcutaneous into the belly. Here is the honest comparison.
| Route | Typical dose | Absorption | Best for | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subcutaneous | 2 mg | Reliable, approved route | Everyone using it | Tiny needle, into belly fat |
| Intramuscular | Not standard | Faster, not studied this way | Not recommended | Unnecessary, more invasive |
| Oral | Not practical | Very low | Not recommended | Does not survive digestion |
Subcutaneous injection
The standard and approved route. A tiny insulin needle goes into the fat just under the skin of the abdomen, not into muscle. This is how every clinical trial dosed it, and it is far less intimidating than it sounds. Rotate sites around the belly to avoid fat loss at one spot.
Intramuscular
Tesamorelin was not developed or studied as an intramuscular shot, and there is no good reason to inject it into muscle. It is a deeper, more uncomfortable injection with no studied benefit here. Stick to subcutaneous.
Oral
Tesamorelin is a peptide that does not survive digestion well, so there is no practical oral version. If you want a GH bump without needles, an oral secretagogue like MK-677 is the usual alternative, but it is a different compound. For tesamorelin itself, the injectable form is the only route.
Where to inject.
If you go this route, these are the sites people use. Rotate so no single area gets sore.
The easiest spots are the belly (about 2 inches either side of the navel), the love handles, the front of the thigh, and the back of the upper arms. Rotate every injection.
So which should a beginner pick? There is really only one answer: subcutaneous into the belly, exactly as it was studied. Intramuscular adds discomfort with no studied upside, and oral does not work. Keep it simple and follow the route the trials used.
Reconstitution: mixing it.
Tesamorelin arrives as a dry powder, so before you can inject it you reconstitute it, which just means adding liquid to turn the powder into something you can draw into a syringe. It sounds technical but takes about a minute.
Once it is mixed, the only real question is how many units to draw. That depends on your vial size, your water amount, and your target dose, and it is easy to get wrong by hand.
- Use bacteriostatic water, often called BAC water. The small amount of preservative keeps the mixed vial usable while you draw daily doses.
- Add the water slowly, down the inside wall of the vial. A common mix is a 10 mg vial plus 2 mL of BAC water, which gives a concentration of 5 mg/mL.
- Swirl, do not shake. Gently roll the vial until the powder dissolves. Shaking can damage the peptide.
- Store it in the fridge once mixed, keep it out of light, and use it within about a week.
Open the dosage calculator to turn your vial and dose into an exact number of units. As a worked example: a 10 mg vial mixed with 2 mL of BAC water gives 5 mg/mL, so a 2 mg dose is 0.4 mL, which is 40 units on a U-100 insulin syringe, and that vial holds about 5 doses.
Dosing by goal.
Tesamorelin is unusual here because it actually has an official, FDA-approved dose. What follows is that approved dose plus the off-label patterns people commonly run. The defining feature is that it is a daily injection, not a weekly one.
Standard dose
The approved and most common dose is 2 mg subcutaneously once a day, typically in the evening to line up with the body's natural overnight GH release. Some people titrate up from 1 mg in the first week to ease into it.
5 on, 2 off
For longer off-label runs, many people dose 5 days on and 2 days off each week. The idea is to give the GHRH receptors a regular break and limit desensitization, while keeping the daily-injection rhythm the rest of the week.
Stacked with a secretagogue
Tesamorelin is often paired with Ipamorelin or CJC-1295, which hit the GH axis from a different angle. The tesamorelin dose stays the same; the partner peptide is added, usually injected together in the evening on an empty stomach.
The approved dose, injected subcutaneously into the belly, usually in the evening. This is the well-studied number to anchor on.
Many people run 5 days on, 2 days off, in blocks of a few months, then take a real break rather than dosing indefinitely.
Cycling and timing.
A cycle just means a defined run of time on the peptide, followed by a break. For tesamorelin the common pattern is daily dosing, often 5 days on and 2 days off, run in blocks of a few months, then time off, rather than indefinitely.
Why not just run it forever? Two reasons. Practically, the receptors can desensitize, so a break helps keep it working. And on safety, tesamorelin raises IGF-1, and the long-term effects of keeping IGF-1 elevated for years are not something the off-label data can answer.
- Hold the daily rhythm through your on-days, injecting at roughly the same time each evening.
- Build in the off-days, commonly 2 a week, to give the GHRH receptors a regular rest.
- Take a real break after a few-month block before considering another. If you are monitoring labs, IGF-1 and glucose are the two to watch with a provider.
Stacking Tesamorelin.
Tesamorelin is a growth hormone peptide, so it stacks with the rest of the GH axis rather than the healing blends. The pairings below are the ones people reach for when fat loss and GH support are the goal.
GH from two angles
The popular GH-axis pair. Tesamorelin pushes the GHRH side while Ipamorelin works as a clean secretagogue on the ghrelin side. Together they aim for a fuller, more natural GH pulse, with tesamorelin carrying the visceral-fat angle.
View stack →Full GH-axis drive
An advanced three-peptide stack that layers two GHRH analogs with a secretagogue for a steadier, stronger GH signal. All three are dosed once daily, usually together in the evening on an empty stomach. A step up for people who want to cover the whole axis.
View stack →See full recipes, dosing, and how people run them on the stacks page.
Side effects and safety.
Because tesamorelin is an approved drug, its side-effect profile is better documented than most peptides here. In the trials it was generally tolerated, but the side effects are real and tied to raising your own growth hormone. The ones reported most often are:
- Injection-site reactions, redness, itching, or a small bump, which is why rotating sites around the belly matters.
- Joint and muscle aches, arthralgia and myalgia, common with anything that raises GH.
- Fluid retention and swelling, sometimes with puffiness or carpal-tunnel-type tingling in the hands.
- Higher blood sugar, worsened glucose tolerance, which is a genuine concern for anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes.
Who should be cautious.
Some people have clear reasons to be extra careful, or to avoid tesamorelin entirely until they have spoken with a licensed provider.
- Active cancer, or a pituitary tumor. Because tesamorelin raises IGF-1, which can feed existing tumors, active malignancy and pituitary tumors are hard contraindications on the approved label. This is a conversation for an oncologist, not a forum.
- Diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. It can worsen blood sugar, so glucose should be checked before starting and monitored during use.
- Pregnant or breastfeeding. There is no safety data here, so this is a hard avoid.
- Competing athletes. Tesamorelin is banned by WADA as a growth hormone-releasing factor and will show up as a prohibited substance.
And the universal one: whoever you are, talk to a licensed healthcare provider before starting tesamorelin, especially given the glucose and IGF-1 monitoring it calls for. This guide is educational, not a substitute for personalized medical advice.
Where to buy it safely.
This is where a lot of beginners get burned, because peptide quality varies wildly between vendors and the cheapest vial is not always the real deal. Our honest take: do not shop on price alone, shop on price plus independent lab data.
- Compare vendors side by side. Price ranges are wide, and the difference between the lowest and highest listing can be large for the exact same compound.
- Look for recent third-party lab tests. The gold standard the community looks for is a recent Janoshik certificate of analysis showing purity for the batch you are actually buying.
- Favor recent COAs. An old lab result on a different batch tells you little. The fresher the test, the more it means.
- Be skeptical of suspiciously cheap listings with no testing behind them.
That is exactly the comparison we put together. On our Tesamorelin product page you can compare vendor prices, see which batches have public lab data, and view the grades we assign from that data. From there you can head to the buy page to line up your options.
Questions, answered straight.
Is Tesamorelin legal?
Tesamorelin is FDA-approved as a prescription drug (Egrifta) for HIV-related abdominal fat, so it is a real medicine in that setting. The research vials the vendors we compare sell are offered strictly for research use only, not as a supplement or a substitute for the prescription. It is also on WADA's prohibited list, so competing athletes should steer clear. Rules vary by country, so check what applies where you are.
Is it the same as injecting growth hormone?
No. Tesamorelin does not contain growth hormone. It signals your own pituitary to release more of your own GH in natural pulses. That is generally seen as a gentler approach than injecting synthetic GH directly, though it still raises IGF-1 and carries some of the same cautions.
How is it different from CJC-1295 or Sermorelin?
All three are GHRH analogs that work on the same receptor. Sermorelin is older and short-acting, CJC-1295 is longer-acting, and tesamorelin is the one with a real FDA approval and the strongest data, specifically for cutting visceral fat. People sometimes stack tesamorelin with the others rather than choosing one.
How long until it works?
Effects build over weeks and months, not days. The visceral-fat reduction in the trials was measured over several months of daily use. It is not an overnight change, and it is not a fast muscle-builder on its own.
Will it raise my blood sugar?
It can. Because it raises your own GH and IGF-1, tesamorelin can worsen glucose tolerance, which matters most for anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes. The approved label recommends checking glucose before starting and monitoring during use. Talk to a licensed provider about this before starting.
How do I figure out the dose in units?
Use our calculator. Enter your vial size, how much bacteriostatic water you added, and your target dose, and it tells you exactly how many units to draw on a U-100 syringe. The dosage calculator handles the math for you.