Peptide Graded

AOD-9604

Does AOD-9604 work?

Not properly: animal or lab studies, or small uncontrolled human reports. The one large human trial found no real weight loss and was never fully published.

CAnimal and cell studiesNot approvedas of 2026-10-27

Fat loss is the claimed use. The supporting data are two mouse studies from around 2001 showing lipolytic effects of the growth hormone fragment. Six manufacturer-run trials in 893 adults published only their safety data, so no human trial of weight loss is citable; the largest published human study of fat loss is zero. 1212

Metabolic Pharmaceuticals ran six company-funded trials between 2001 and 2006 in 893 adults, most of them obese. The largest was a 24-week phase 2b study of oral AOD-9604 in 502 obese adults. Only the safety data from those trials were published, in a 2013 summary written with the company. No weight-loss result from the programme has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal. 12

No later human study of whether it works has appeared. Human work published since then is about detection. Anti-doping labs have studied how the body breaks down AOD-9604 and built urine tests for it. They also confirmed it does not interfere with the standard growth hormone isoform test. 46

Evidence checklist

  • Randomised controlled trial No published human RCT
  • Human study over 100 people No published human study over 100
  • More than one research group Only the manufacturer's own trials
  • Clinical outcomes, not surrogate markers Phase 2b showed no meaningful weight loss
  • Human safety data beyond case reports Only 'well tolerated' claims, unpublished

Read the full AOD-9604 page

More on AOD-9604

Citations

  1. Heffernan 2001, Hormone Research: lipolytic growth hormone fragment in obese mice doi.org
  2. Heffernan 2001, International Journal of Obesity: AOD9604 in obese mice doi.org
  3. Current Cardiology Reviews 2013: obesity pharmacotherapy, current perspectives and future directions pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  4. Drug Testing and Analysis 2015: detection and in vitro metabolism of AOD9604 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  5. DailyMed: somatropin label, 191-amino-acid human growth hormone dailymed.nlm.nih.gov
  6. Drug Testing and Analysis 2013: AOD-9604 does not influence the WADA hGH isoform immunoassay pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  7. FDA: bulk drug substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding fda.gov
  8. WADA: 2026 Prohibited List wada-ama.org
  9. FDA: 503A bulk drug substances category list (2023 update) fda.gov
  10. FDA Drugs@FDA: tesamorelin (Egrifta) approval record accessdata.fda.gov
  11. Falutz 2007, NEJM: metabolic effects of tesamorelin in patients with HIV pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  12. Stier 2013, Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism: safety and tolerability of the hexadecapeptide AOD9604 in humans doi.org

Reference information only, not medical advice. Drawn from the AOD-9604 article, fact-checked against the cited sources. No dosing anywhere on this site.