AOD-9604 dosage and evidence

What is AOD-9604?

How does AOD-9604 work?

In animals, it makes fat cells break down fat and stops them storing new fat. It does not really change IGF-1 or blood sugar.

What have studies in people found about AOD-9604?

AOD-9604 is one of the few compounds on this site that a company took through real weight-loss studies and finished. It ran six studies against a dummy. The main one lasted 24 weeks, signed up 534 people and put 502 into groups. It did not beat the dummy on weight loss, and the company shut the project down in 2007. The safety results from the six studies were published. The weight-loss result never was.

• The weight-loss study that decided it: 24 weeks, 534 people signed up and 502 put into groups. It did not beat the dummy on weight loss, the goal it was built to test. That comes from a 2026 review of growth hormone peptides, which traces it to the company's 2007 notice to the Australian stock exchange. The notice says the results do not support the obesity project going ahead, and that the project was ended.
• Safety across six studies against a dummy, where nobody knew who got what (Stier, Vos and Kenley 2013, Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, doi 10.4021/jem157w): AOD9604 did not change IGF-1 in the blood. A sugar test showed no harm to blood sugar control, unlike full growth hormone. In none of the studies did anyone drop out or have a serious side effect linked to it. The paper reports safety only, not weight loss.
• Doses people were actually given in studies: 25 to 400 mcg as a single drip into a vein, and 1 mg by mouth once a day for 12 weeks in people with obesity. The same 2026 review notes that online plans use 250 to 500 mcg a day as shots under the skin, split into two or three shots, for 8 to 12 weeks. That route, dose and time frame appear nowhere in the published record in people.
• No paper on whether it worked exists. A PubMed search for AOD9604 finds 23 records, and the only one in people is the safety summary above. No study of it is listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, so the studies were never posted there. The only account of what happened is the company's own.
• FDA's safety page on compounding substances, updated 22 April 2026, lists AOD-9604. FDA says it has found little or no safety information, so it does not know whether the drug would harm people. It also says it has found serious side effects that may be linked to AOD-9604, though it is not clear the drug caused them.
• Joint and cartilage claims rest on animals only: AOD9604 was injected into the knees of rabbits with arthritis, with or without hyaluronic acid (Kwon and Park 2015). No joint study of any kind has been published in people.

What this does not tell you: The result that matters most here has never been checked by outside scientists. It exists as a company notice, summed up in a 2026 review. So nobody outside the company has seen how people were split into groups, who dropped out, or the actual numbers. The published safety paper does not say how many people were in the six studies, how long each ran, or what doses were used. Nothing in the human record supports the shots under the skin that are sold now. Nothing in it covers joints, tendons, recovery or lean muscle.

What do people who took AOD-9604 report?

This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.

• This is one of the few compounds in this catalogue where the experienced posters are uniformly negative about it, and say so bluntly. The recurring position is that the development programme was abandoned after the trials failed, and that the user stories line up with that rather than contradicting it.
• The dose figure that circulates is around 1 mg daily, referencing the one early study where a small effect was described, and the point repeatedly made in the same breath is that going higher was reported as producing less rather than more.
• People who describe having used it describe having used it as one item inside a large stack alongside peptides that make the body release growth hormone, and tesamorelin, so even the favourable accounts cannot isolate it.
• The most common comparison made by long-term posters is that growth hormone itself is cheaper and does more, which is offered as the reason not to bother rather than as a recommendation.
• Reports of no effect are the dominant category here, not a minority one. That is unusual in these communities and is the single most notable thing about the discussion.

Sources: Fat loss peptide threads and compound write-ups on MESO-Rx, and peptide stack threads on ExcelMale, found by site-restricted search and read in September 2026. Nothing above is attributed to any specific post and no post is reproduced.

The state of the research

The evidence, in charts

The studies we cite

• Study in people2013
  Safety and tolerability of the hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in humans

  AOD9604 was tested properly for weight loss and it did not work. Six separate trials compared it with a dummy, and none of them delivered the fat loss the drug was built for. It did not change the growth hormone marker in the blood, and it did not change how people handled sugar. Its side effect profile looked the same as a dummy injection. So the honest summary is that it is safe and it is ineffective.

  Summary of six randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled human trials: AOD9604 (Tyr-hGH177-191) had no effect on IGF-1 or glucose tolerance and a safety profile indistinguishable from placebo; the programme did not establish efficacy for weight loss.

  DOI 10.4021/jem157w Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism
• Review of studies2026
  The emerging landscape of performance-enhancing peptides modulating GH-IGF1 axis: bridging the gap between clinical evidence and patient self-administration

  A company tested this for weight loss in more than 500 people, and it did not work. This review records the 24 week study: 534 people signed up, 502 were sorted into groups, and the weight loss the trial was built to show never appeared. The sponsor shut the programme down. The review also warns that this conclusion rests on the company's own announcement, because the failure was never written up in a journal.

  Records that AOD9604 failed to demonstrate a significant benefit on the primary weight-loss endpoint in a 24-week study with 534 subjects and 502 randomized, and notes that conclusions about lack of efficacy rest on sponsor-reported Phase 2 programme outcomes rather than peer-reviewed randomized efficacy trials.

  PMID 42395176 Frontiers in Endocrinology
• Review of studies2026
  Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding that May Present Significant Safety Risks

  This is a regulator's safety notice, not a trial result. FDA says it found little or no safety information about AOD-9604, so it cannot say whether the compound would harm a person. It also says it has found serious side effects that may be linked to it, while adding that nobody has shown the compound caused them. The page records what is unknown.

  FDA states it has identified no, or only limited, safety-related information for AOD-9604, lacks sufficient information to know whether it would cause harm in humans, and has identified serious adverse events that may be associated with it although causality is not clear. Updated 22 April 2026.

  Source U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• Animal study2001
  The effects of human GH and its lipolytic fragment (AOD9604) on lipid metabolism following chronic treatment in obese mice and beta(3)-AR knock-out mice

  In obese mice, 14 days of AOD9604 cut body weight and fat. It worked through a fat-burning receptor called beta-3. In mice without that receptor, the effect was gone.

  14 days of AOD9604 reduced body weight and fat in obese mice and increased beta3-adrenergic receptor expression; effects were lost in beta3-AR knockout mice.

  PMID 11713213 Endocrinology
• Animal study2000
  Molecular and cellular actions of a structural domain of human growth hormone (AOD9401) on lipid metabolism in Zucker fatty rats

  In obese rats, the fat-burning piece of growth hormone switched on a fat breakdown enzyme and slowed weight gain. It did not cause blood sugar problems.

  The hGH 177-191 lipolytic domain stimulated hormone-sensitive lipase and reduced weight gain in obese rats without inducing insulin resistance or glucose intolerance.

  PMID 11116208 Journal of Molecular Endocrinology
• Animal study2015
  Effect of Intra-articular Injection of AOD9604 with or without Hyaluronic Acid in Rabbit Osteoarthritis Model

  In rabbits only. Every joint and cartilage claim made for this peptide comes from this study. Researchers injected AOD9604 into the knees of rabbits with arthritis, with and without hyaluronic acid. No person has ever been given it for a joint problem, in any kind of study. If a seller says it repairs cartilage, this rabbit study is the evidence behind that.

  The entire basis for joint and cartilage claims about this compound is this rabbit osteoarthritis model. No human joint study has been published.

  PMID 26275694 Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science