CJC-1295

A synthetic version of the hormone that tells the pituitary gland to release growth hormone, GHRH(1–29). The chain contains a mirror-image form of alanine in position 2, so it cannot be written correctly in the standard one-letter code; we mark it unknown rather than print a misleading string. Two versions are sold: one with DAC (a drug affinity complex), which sticks to a blood protein and lasts longer, and one without. Originally developed by the company ConjuChem.

Sold as

Injection under the skin.

Legal status in the EU

Not approved as a medicine in the EU or anywhere else. Named on the doping list among GHRH analogues alongside CJC-1293, sermorelin and tesamorelin (Antidoping Sweden, 2023 doping list, section S2, point 2.4).

It binds the GHRH receptor in the pituitary gland and increases the release of growth hormone, which in turn raises IGF-1 in the blood.

Part of the bodyWhat happensHow it is knownKind of evidence

The pituitary gland, at the base of the brain

CJC-1295 latches onto the gland that makes growth hormone. That gland is the size of a pea and sits under the brain. The compound tells it to release more. The natural rhythm survives: growth hormone still comes out in bursts, and the bursts stay the same in number and size. What rises is the background level between bursts, which in twelve healthy men was 7.5 times higher a week after a single injection. Because the compound sticks to a protein in the blood, that push lasts days rather than minutes.

Measured in 63 healthy adults across the three published human studies, 87 per cent of them men. Just under three quarters of them received one injection only. The burst measurements come from 12 men aged 20 to 40, who had blood taken every 20 minutes through a 12-hour night, before and one week after one injection.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]Source [07]

The growth signal in the blood (IGF-1)

Growth hormone makes the liver release IGF-1, and it is IGF-1 that actually reaches muscle, bone and other tissue. After a single injection IGF-1 rose to between one and a half and three times where it started. It took two to four days to peak, held for about a week, and stayed above the starting level for nine to eleven days. In the twelve men it went from 165 to 240 nanograms per millilitre, a rise the regulator's review puts at 44 per cent, and every one of them rose. It stayed inside the normal range for their age and sex. It climbed above the normal range only in the group given the largest single amount tested.

Measured in two randomised studies in healthy adults aged 21 to 61 — randomised meaning people were put into their groups by chance, not by choice. One followed a single injection for 28 days, the other repeated injections for 49 days, and both had a dummy-injection group. The 165-to-240 figures come separately from 12 healthy men, one week after a single injection.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]Source [07]

Blood vessels, flushing and blood pressure

Within half an hour of an injection people go red and feel warm, and blood pressure can dip. In the single-injection study about 3 in 10 people had this flushing, warmth and short-lived drop in blood pressure. Nobody on the dummy injection did. In the repeat-injection study flushing followed 4 in 10 of the smaller injections and every one of the larger ones. It started within 30 minutes and passed within one to two hours. Heart rate also rose, and rose more at larger amounts.

Measured in healthy adults aged 21 to 61 in two randomised studies with dummy-injection groups, over 28 and 49 days. The heart-rate finding comes from the 12-man study, which followed a single injection.

Measured in people

Source [06]Source [07]

Stomach and gut

Loose stools and diarrhoea were common and got worse with larger amounts. In the single-injection study 43 per cent of people on CJC-1295 had diarrhoea and nobody on the dummy injection did. In the two largest dose groups, 125 and 250 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, the figures were 45 and 100 per cent. In the repeat-injection study 1 in 5 people had nausea or stomach pain, again only in the group actually receiving the compound.

Measured in healthy adults aged 21 to 61 in two randomised studies with dummy-injection groups, over 28 and 49 days.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

Blood sugar, the liver and the heart tracing

Nothing measurable changed. Across both studies there were no consistent changes in blood or urine tests, including blood sugar and liver tests, and none in the heart tracing. This is a real finding and a short one. Growth hormone kept high over months is known to push blood sugar up, and the longest of these studies lasted 49 days.

Measured in healthy adults aged 21 to 61 in two randomised studies with dummy-injection groups, over 28 and 49 days. Nobody has been followed for longer in a published study.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

Muscle and body fat

This is what people take it for, and it has only been seen in animals. Male mice bred without the natural hormone that CJC-1295 imitates were injected from one week old for five weeks. Those injected every 24 hours reached normal body weight and length. They also ended with longer thigh and shin bones, more lean mass, less fat under the skin, and more growth-hormone-making cells in the pituitary gland. Mice injected every 48 or 72 hours grew more than untreated ones but did not catch up fully. No published study has ever weighed a person's muscle or fat while giving them CJC-1295.

Seen in mice genetically bred without growth-hormone-releasing hormone, treated from one week of age for five weeks. Never measured in a person, in any study, at any amount.

Only seen in animals

Source [06]Source [08]

Teichman and colleagues (J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006) ran two randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled dose-escalation studies in healthy people aged 21–61, over 28 and 49 days. After a single injection, average growth hormone rose 2- to 10-fold for at least 6 days and IGF-1 rose 1.5- to 3-fold for 9–11 days; it was estimated to stay in the body for 5.8–8.1 days. The abstract does not state how many people took part. A phase 2 study in HIV-associated abdominal fat (NCT00267527, ConjuChem, 120 participants, 2005–2006) was stopped early with no reason given in the registry, and the results were never published. No study has measured muscle mass, strength, body composition or injury healing.

Growth hormone peaks within about an hour of an injection and stays above where it started for at least six days. IGF-1 moves more slowly. It starts climbing within eight hours, peaks two to four days later, holds for about a week, and stays above the starting level for nine to eleven days. The compound itself is still measurable in blood 10 to 13 days after an injection. It also builds up with repeated injections: peak levels after the injection on day 14 were 29 to 70 per cent higher than after the first one. The longest anyone has been followed in a published study is 49 days.

What was measuredWhat happenedIn whomHow it is known

Growth hormone in the blood

Rose 2 to 10 times and stayed up for at least 6 days after a single injection, with bigger amounts giving bigger rises. Growth hormone in the dummy-injection group stayed flat. The peak came within about an hour for every dose group except the largest, where it came at 4 hours.

Healthy adults aged 21 to 61, followed for 28 days after one injection; 35 people received CJC-1295 and 7 received a dummy injection. Neither the participants nor the staff knew who had which.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

IGF-1, the growth signal growth hormone works through

Rose to between one and a half and three times where it started, and stayed above the starting level for 9 to 11 days after one injection. IGF-1 in the dummy-injection group stayed flat. It went above the normal range for age and sex only in the group given the largest single amount, 250 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

Healthy adults aged 21 to 61; 35 people on CJC-1295 and 7 on a dummy injection, followed for 28 days after a single injection.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

Blood sugar, liver tests, urine tests and the heart tracing

No consistent change in either study, in the people given CJC-1295 or in the people given a dummy injection.

Healthy adults aged 21 to 61 across both randomised studies, 28 and 49 days.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

How long the compound itself stays in the blood

Still measurable 10 to 13 days after an injection. Its half-life — the time for half of it to clear — was 5.4 to 9.2 days. It also builds up: after the injection on day 14, peak levels were 29 to 70 per cent higher than after the first injection, in all four dose groups.

24 healthy adults in the repeat-injection study, in four groups of six, one person in each group receiving a dummy injection; 49 days.

Measured in people

Source [01]Source [06]

The background level of growth hormone between natural bursts

7.5 times higher one week after a single injection, from 0.058 to 0.435 nanograms per millilitre. The number and size of the natural bursts did not change. The average level over the night rose 46 per cent. IGF-1 in the same men rose from 165 to 240 nanograms per millilitre — a rise of 44 per cent in the regulator's review and 45 per cent in the paper's own abstract — without going above the normal range in anyone. This study had no dummy-injection group: each man was compared with himself before the injection.

12 healthy men aged 20 to 40, blood taken every 20 minutes through a 12-hour night before and one week after one injection; 4 received 60 and 8 received 90 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

One small study

Source [06]Source [07]

Body size, lean mass and fat, in mice bred without the natural hormone

Mice injected every 24 hours reached the body weight and body length of littermates that carried a working copy of the gene. They also ended with longer thigh and shin bones, more lean mass and less fat under the skin than mice given the carrier liquid alone. Injections every 48 or 72 hours raised weight and length above the untreated mice but did not bring them all the way back to normal.

Male mice genetically bred without growth-hormone-releasing hormone, treated from one week of age for five weeks, against mice given the carrier liquid and against littermates carrying a working copy of the gene.

Only seen in animals

Source [06]Source [08]

The 2006 studies reported no serious side effects, but they were short, involved healthy people, and were not designed to catch rare or late harms. The risk profile is assumed to follow growth hormone's, where sustained high growth hormone and IGF-1 are linked to insulin resistance, fluid retention and joint problems — but none of that has been measured for CJC-1295 specifically. The phase 2 programme was abandoned and there is no long-term data.

EffectWhat it feels likeHow often

A fatal heart attack in the one trial in people with a conditionSerious

The account is that a participant at a study site in Argentina complained of chest discomfort two hours after an eleventh weekly injection, that a heart tracing confirmed a heart attack, and that he died about an hour later. The doctor who attended him gave the most likely explanation as silent coronary artery disease — narrowed arteries feeding the heart, causing no symptoms until they close. That account comes from press and community reports of 2006, which the US regulator reprints in its 2024 review and describes as anecdotal. The trial was stopped, the company abandoned the compound, and the data have never been published, so nobody outside that company has been able to check whether the drug contributed.

One death in the mid-stage trial that was stopped in July 2006. Two enrolment figures are on the record for that trial: the registry entry says 120 people, the report the regulator reproduced says 192. Nothing was ever published about what happened to anyone else in it.

Source [02]Source [06]Source [09]

Reactions where the needle goes in

Irritation, redness, hardening of the skin, pain or itching, more severe and longer-lasting after bigger amounts. Nearly 3 in 10 people also got a short-lived hive-like rash at the injection site, which happened as often after small amounts as large ones. The regulator's review reports that in rats and dogs given repeated daily injections under the skin for up to 14 days, the injection sites showed bleeding, inflammation and small patches of dead tissue at every amount tested. Nobody has looked at what repeated injections do to human skin beyond the four injections these studies gave.

About 7 in 10 people in the single-injection study, and every single person in the repeat-injection study. Rare in people given a dummy injection in the first study. In the second, 3 of the 4 people on dummy injections had mild redness.

Source [01]Source [06]

Headache

The commonest complaint that was not about the injection site. Headache is also listed on the labels of approved growth hormone medicines. That is what a compound which raises growth hormone would be expected to share.

63 per cent of people on CJC-1295 against 14 per cent on a dummy injection in the single-injection study. In the repeat-injection study it ranged from 20 to 80 per cent depending on the group, against 50 per cent on the dummy injection.

Source [06]

Loose stools and diarrhoea

Described as passing rather than lasting. It tracked the amount given closely: the bigger the injection, the more likely it was.

43 per cent of people on CJC-1295 in the single-injection study and nobody on a dummy injection; 45 per cent in the 125 group and 100 per cent in the 250 group, measured in micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

Source [01]Source [06]

Going red and warm, with a dip in blood pressure

It starts within 30 minutes and is gone within one to two hours. Two people in the repeat-injection study also had brief dizziness and low blood pressure after their first injection. It settled on its own and did not come back with later injections.

About 3 in 10 people in the single-injection study and nobody on a dummy injection. In the repeat-injection study, after 4 in 10 of the smaller injections and after every larger one.

Source [06]

Nausea or stomach pain

Reported only in the study that gave more than one injection.

1 in 5 people in the repeat-injection study, and nobody on a dummy injection.

Source [06]

Leg muscles contracting on their own, with some loss of coordination

Described as passing. It is a single event in a small study, which is exactly the kind of signal a 20-person study cannot tell apart from chance.

One person, out of the 20 who received CJC-1295 in the repeat-injection study. It followed a second fortnightly injection of 30 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

Source [06]

Anything that takes longer than seven weeks to appear

Growth hormone kept high for months brings its own risks: higher blood sugar, fluid building up, joint trouble, and the question of whether cells are pushed to divide. All of that sits outside what has been observed here. The regulator's 2024 review said it had found nothing to suggest CJC-1295 would not carry risks similar to approved growth hormone medicines, and no study has been done to find out.

Not measured. The longest published study lasted 49 days, and most of the 63 people studied received a single injection.

Source [06]Source [10]

These are the amounts the studies below gave their participants, and they are here as facts about those studies. They are not a recommendation, not a starting point and not a range to pick from. What a person should take, if anything, is a question for a doctor who knows them.

Teichman and colleagues 2006, first study — what a single injection does to growth hormone and IGF-1 in healthy adults aged 21 to 61, against a dummy injection

One injection under the skin. The dose groups named in the regulator's summary of this study are 60, 125 and 250 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, alongside at least one smaller group it does not name.

A single injection, followed by 28 days of measurement.

Source [01]Source [06]

Teichman and colleagues 2006, second study — what repeated injections do, in 24 healthy adults split into four groups of six, one person in each group receiving a dummy injection

Injections under the skin, in micrograms per kilogram of body weight. Group 1 received 30 on days 0 and 14; group 2 received 60 on days 0 and 14; group 3 received 30 on days 0, 7 and 14; group 4 received 20 on days 0, 7 and 14.

49 days.

Source [01]Source [06]

Ionescu and Frohman 2006 — whether the natural bursts of growth hormone survive, in 12 healthy men aged 20 to 40

A single injection under the skin: 60 micrograms per kilogram of body weight in 4 men, 90 micrograms per kilogram in 8 men.

A single injection, with overnight blood sampling before it and one week after.

Source [06]Source [07]

ConjuChem's mid-stage trial in people with HIV-related belly fat (NCT00267527) — the only trial ever run in people with a condition, stopped in July 2006 and never published. The registry records 120 people; the report the regulator reproduced says 192 were enrolled

Once-weekly injections that climbed over the first three weeks, in micrograms per kilogram of body weight: either 60, then 90, then 120, or 60, then 120, then 240, against a dummy injection.

12 weeks of treatment plus 6 weeks of follow-up were planned. The trial was stopped early and no results were ever posted or published.

Source [02]Source [06]Source [09]

What people report

• Whether it builds any muscle or adds any strength in a person — never measured, in any study.
• Whether it changes body fat in a person — never measured, in any study.
• Whether it helps any injury heal — never measured, in any study.
• Whether it does anything at all for sleep, which is one of the five reasons forum users give for taking it.
• Whether the version sold without DAC does anything in a person: no published human study of it exists.
• What happens after 49 days, which is as long as any published study has run.
• Whether long use makes the pituitary gland overgrow or turn cancerous: no two-year animal cancer study has been done, and mice engineered to overproduce the natural hormone do develop pituitary overgrowth and tumours.
• Whether the immune system makes antibodies against it over time: one study looked and reported no significant amount, and the regulator says that single short study cannot rule the risk out because nobody has been given it repeatedly for long.
• Whether the 2006 death had anything to do with the drug: the trial's data were never published.
• Whether it helps anyone who actually has a growth hormone deficiency. It has never been given to such a person in a published study, and the regulator states it cannot work in someone whose pituitary gland makes no growth hormone at all.
• What is in the vials sold online: the published chemical analyses are of preparations seized by police and customs, not of anything bought as a customer.
• What it does in children: no safety information exists at any amount.
• What happens when it is injected together with ipamorelin, which is a common way it is sold.
• Whether women respond differently: 87 per cent of the 63 healthy adults ever studied were men, and no result has been reported separately for women.

What is the difference between the version with DAC and the version without?

DAC is a chemical hook added to the peptide. It latches onto albumin, a protein floating in blood, so the compound hangs about for days instead of minutes. Every published human study used the version with DAC. The version sold as "CJC-1295 no DAC" or "modified GRF 1-29" has never been given to a person in a published study. It first appears in the scientific literature in 2010, when Norwegian police and customs sent a seized, unlabelled preparation to a laboratory and the analysts found the CJC-1295 sequence in it without the DAC hook. The regulator's 2024 review states that it found no study establishing whether the version without DAC does anything at all.

Source [06]Source [11]Source [12]

Can a pharmacy legally make it?

In the United States, no. A pharmacy may only mix a medicine from a raw substance if that substance has a US Pharmacopeia entry, is part of an approved medicine, or is on a list the regulator keeps. The regulator's 2024 review states that CJC-1295 is none of the three. On 4 December 2024 its Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted on whether five forms of CJC-1295 should be added to that list. It voted 13 to nothing against for four of them and 12 to 1 against for the fifth. The review concluded that the substance is not well characterised chemically, that there is no evidence it works for growth hormone deficiency, and that animal studies raised safety concerns. The two companies that had nominated it withdrew their nominations; the regulator carried on with the review and held the vote anyway.

Source [06]Source [13]

Did somebody really die in a trial?

Yes. The company confirmed a death in its mid-stage trial in people with HIV-related belly fat and stopped the trial on 17 July 2006. It said only that the participant was at a study site in Argentina. The rest of the account — that he had a heart attack two hours after an eleventh weekly injection and died about an hour later, and that the doctor who attended him blamed silent narrowing of the heart arteries — comes from reports of the time which the US regulator reprints and calls anecdotal. The trial's data were never published, which is why the question of whether the drug played any part cannot be answered from the outside.

Source [02]Source [06]Source [09]

Does it push IGF-1 above the normal range?

Not at most of the amounts that were studied. In 12 healthy men, one injection raised IGF-1 by 44 per cent, and it stayed inside the normal range for age and sex in every one of them. In the dose study, IGF-1 rose above the normal range only in the group given the largest single amount tested, 250 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. Nobody has measured what happens to IGF-1 over months of repeated injections in a person.

Source [06]Source [07]

Is it banned in sport?

Yes, and at all times, in and out of competition. The doping list places growth-hormone-releasing hormone and its analogues in section S2, naming CJC-1293, CJC-1295, sermorelin and tesamorelin. The regulator's 2024 review also records that a laboratory method for measuring CJC-1295 in blood and urine was published in 2012, so it is not only prohibited but testable.

Source [03]Source [06]

Why is it so often sold mixed with ipamorelin?

Because that is how sellers package it. The regulator's 2024 review documents online products and clinics selling CJC-1295 and ipamorelin as a blend, and both of the side-effect reports naming CJC-1295 in the regulator's public database name it that way too. One of those two arrived in February 2026, after the review was written. No published study has ever given a person both at once. What the pair does together is unmeasured, and so is whether the two amounts in any given vial are what the label says.

Source [06]Source [14]

1. [01]Prolonged stimulation of GH and IGF-I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults (J Clin Endocrinol Metab) (2006)
2. [02]A Study to Evaluate CJC 1295 in HIV Patients With Visceral Obesity (NCT00267527, TERMINATED, n=120) (2006)
3. [03]Dopinglistan 2023, Antidoping Sverige — S2 punkt 2.4, GHRH-analoger (CJC-1293, CJC-1295, sermorelin, tesamorelin) (2023)
4. [04]CJC-1295, PubChem synonymer (GRF 1-29-analog med D-alanyl i position 2)
5. [05]SVT investigation: peptides contain banned substances — buyers can be prosecuted (in Swedish) (2026)
6. [06]FDA briefing document for CJC-1295-related bulk drug substances, Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, 4 December 2024 (2024)
7. [07]Ionescu and Frohman, bursts of growth hormone persist during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295 (J Clin Endocrinol Metab) (2006)
8. [08]Alba and colleagues, once-daily CJC-1295 normalises growth in the GHRH knockout mouse (Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab) (2006)
9. [09]NAM aidsmap: lipodystrophy study halted after patient death (2006)
10. [10]Dominikowski and colleagues, performance-enhancing peptides acting on growth hormone and IGF-1 (Frontiers in Endocrinology, free full text) (2026)
11. [11]Henninge and colleagues, identification of CJC-1295 in an unknown pharmaceutical preparation (Drug Testing and Analysis) (2010)
12. [12]Jetté and colleagues, identification of CJC-1295 as a long-lasting growth hormone releasing factor analogue in rats (Endocrinology) (2005)
13. [13]Minutes of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting, 4 December 2024, with the CJC-1295 votes (2024)
14. [14]Side-effect reports naming CJC-1295 in the FDA adverse event database (openFDA query, two reports)