Research console / GHRH analogue
Tesamorelin is a synthetic GHRH analogue, read trial by trial, FDA scope first.
A reviewed digest of the published record — visceral fat, liver fat, IGF-1 and the honest gaps — with the newest trials lit first and every quantitative claim traced to its study.
The short version
Tesamorelin is a synthetic copy of GHRH (the brain's own "make growth hormone" signal), tuned to last longer in the blood. It nudges the pituitary to release the body's own growth hormone in natural pulses, which raises IGF-1 (a growth signal the liver makes when growth hormone rises) and, in studies, burns off visceral fat (the deep belly fat packed around the organs). It is FDA-approved for exactly one thing: trimming that deep abdominal fat in people living with HIV who have a fat-redistribution problem. Every other use — general weight loss, anti-aging, performance — is off-label and was not what the trials tested.
Tesamorelin: a synthetic GHRH peptide
Tesamorelin is a synthetic 44-amino-acid tesamorelin peptide — a stabilized analogue of human growth hormone-releasing hormone, GHRH(1-44). A trans-3-hexenoyl group (a small fatty-acid cap) is fixed to its front end, and that cap blocks DPP-IV (an enzyme that normally chews up natural GHRH within minutes), so the molecule survives in the blood long enough to act [3]. It is not growth hormone itself. It is the upstream signal that tells the pituitary to make and release the body's own growth hormone, in the same rhythmic bursts the body uses naturally [4].
The identifiers are settled. Tesamorelin carries CAS 218949-48-5, FDA UNII 9MM72X02HA, ATC code H01AC06 and a molecular weight of 5135.9 Da for the free base. It reached the U.S. market under NDA 022505 in 2010 [5]. Those are the fixed coordinates this site reads every trial against.
What the research literature reports on tesamorelin
The headline tesamorelin benefits in the published record are metabolic and specific. In a pivotal 26-week Phase 3 trial of 412 adults with HIV-associated abdominal fat accumulation, tesamorelin 2 mg/day cut visceral adipose tissue (the deep fat around the organs) by 15.2%, while placebo rose 5.0%; triglycerides fell 50 mg/dL and IGF-1 climbed 81.0% [1]. The effect held over time: across the 52-week program, visceral fat stayed down about 18% [2].
Liver fat moved too. In a JAMA trial of antiretroviral-treated adults, tesamorelin produced a net hepatic-fat reduction of 2.9% versus placebo [6], and a 12-month Lancet HIV trial in patients with fatty liver cut hepatic fat fraction by 37% relative to placebo [7]. A 2026 meta-analysis of five randomized trials pooled the record: visceral fat down a mean 27.71 cm2, hepatic fat fraction down 4.28%, lean body mass up 1.42 kg, with no serious adverse events [8]. These are findings in HIV-lipodystrophy cohorts. We summarize them as tesamorelin and visceral fat and tesamorelin and liver fat, not as a general fat-loss claim.
Is tesamorelin FDA approved?
Yes — for one indication only. Tesamorelin was approved in the United States in 2010 (NDA 022505) to reduce excess abdominal visceral fat in HIV-infected adults with lipodystrophy [5]. That is the whole of the label.
Every other use is off-label: general or cosmetic weight loss, anti-aging, growth-hormone "optimization," non-HIV fatty liver, and performance use are not FDA-approved indications, and the pivotal efficacy trials were run in HIV-positive adults on antiretroviral therapy [1][2]. Generalizing to non-HIV populations is mechanistically plausible but has not been settled by large randomized trials. Tesamorelin is also a GHRH analogue prohibited in sport under the WADA Prohibited List (category S2), in- and out-of-competition. You can read the precise scope under is tesamorelin FDA approved below and the safety picture under safety signals reported in the trials.
What is tesamorelin?
Tesamorelin is a synthetic 44-amino-acid analogue of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH(1-44)) carrying an N-terminal trans-3-hexenoyl group that resists DPP-IV cleavage; it stimulates the body's own pulsatile growth hormone and raises IGF-1 [3][4]. It is supplied as the acetate salt and given by subcutaneous injection in the trials [1].
What does tesamorelin do?
In studies it amplifies the body's own pulsatile growth-hormone secretion, raising IGF-1 and promoting fat breakdown preferentially in visceral fat [1][4]. Its FDA approval is limited to HIV-associated lipodystrophy; other uses are off-label [5]. It does not supply growth hormone directly — it signals the pituitary to release the hormone the body already makes. The full tesamorelin mechanism of action is laid out on the research page.
How we read the trials here
This is a reading console, not a storefront. Each peer-reviewed trial is treated as one panel: the population, the dose, the route, the measured outcome, and the citation. The composed lens is recent-research, so the newest panels are lit first — the 2026 five-trial meta-analysis [8], the 2024 integrase-inhibitor-era trial [9], the 2025 cognition trial [10] — with the pivotal 2007 and 2008 trials [1][2] held as the established baseline. The scope caveat is the first status flag on every page, not a footnote.