Metabolic Effects of a Growth Hormone–Releasing Factor in Patients with HIV

Baker L.D. et al.

Twenty weeks of tesamorelin in 152 enrolled adults (137 completers; 76 healthy, 61 with MCI); favorable cognitive signals on executive function. Short and small, but the cleanest cognition-specific GHRH-analog RCT. A 2025 HIV-population follow-up by Ellis et al. showed only a non-significant trend toward improvement — read both.

Nass R. et al.

The single best human MK-677 trial. Two years in healthy older adults: +1.1 kg fat-free mass, no improvement in strength or function, fasting glucose up, insulin sensitivity down. Restores GH to young-adult levels — without proving that doing so does anything useful.

Teichman S.L. et al.

The canonical first-in-human dataset for CJC-1295 with DAC: 2- to 10-fold GH elevation lasting six-plus days and IGF-1 elevation lasting nine to eleven days from a single injection. Everything written about CJC-1295 traces back here. Phase-2 development never continued — note that.

Raun K. et al.

The Novo Nordisk paper that introduced ipamorelin as the first GH-releasing peptide that doesn't drag cortisol and prolactin along with it. Foundational pharmacology — the reason ipamorelin gets paired with CJC-1295 in every modern protocol.