{ "name": "What circulates versus what was studied", "description": "For each research compound: the dose administered in a published human trial with its source, the dose that circulates in practice, and the direction of the difference. The circulating column is an observation of what happens, not a recommendation; this is not a protocol and there is no dose to follow here. Each row's url points at the page where its figures are explained and cited.", "version": "2026-08-20", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "source": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/gap", "publisher": "The Longevity Desk", "count": 65, "fields": [ "name", "slug", "url", "category", "circulating_dose", "studied_dose", "studied_source", "gap_direction", "gap_direction_meaning", "gap_note", "medicine_status", "medicine_status_meaning", "medicine_note" ], "compounds": [ { "name": "BPC-157", "slug": "bpc-157", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/bpc-157", "category": "recovery", "circulating_dose": "250 to 500 mcg per day", "studied_dose": "About 117 mcg per day", "studied_source": "Allometric scaling from the 10 µg/kg rat arm, FDA body surface method", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "The convention sits above every scaled figure and has no published derivation. It is also exactly one twentieth and one tenth of a 5 mg vial.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "And FDA moved in 2026 to keep it out of compounding pharmacies." }, { "name": "TB-500", "slug": "tb-500", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/tb-500", "category": "recovery", "circulating_dose": "2 mg twice weekly, then weekly", "studied_dose": "No human dose has ever been published", "studied_source": "FDA found no article administering it to a human", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. Every mg/kg figure in circulation belongs to thymosin beta-4, which FDA states is not the same substance.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "The human record cited for it belongs to thymosin beta-4, a different substance." }, { "name": "Semaglutide", "slug": "semaglutide", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/semaglutide", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "Prescription doses, often from grey market vials", "studied_dose": "Large randomised placebo controlled trials", "studied_source": "The strongest evidence base of anything on this site", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The risk moved off the molecule and into the vial. Three tested vials were far less pure than claimed and simultaneously over label, so careful dosing meant overdosing.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus. No trial ever used research-grade material." }, { "name": "Tirzepatide", "slug": "tirzepatide", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/tirzepatide", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "Microdoses below 2.5 mg weekly", "studied_dose": "5, 10 and 15 mg weekly", "studied_source": "SURMOUNT-1, about a fifth of body weight at the top dose", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "Microdosing was tested once. At the smallest dose people lost under a kilogram in six months.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As Mounjaro and Zepbound. The vials sold online are neither." }, { "name": "Retatrutide", "slug": "retatrutide", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/retatrutide", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "0.25 to 1.5 mg starting, 4 mg maintenance", "studied_dose": "Up to 12 mg weekly", "studied_source": "Lilly phase 2, about a quarter of body weight at the top dose", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "Trial results describe a molecule, not a vial. No approved version exists at any price, so there is no reference article to hold yours against.", "medicine_status": "trials", "medicine_status_meaning": "In active clinical development. Approved nowhere yet.", "medicine_note": "Lilly's program is in large trials; no approved version exists at any price." }, { "name": "Ipamorelin", "slug": "ipamorelin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ipamorelin", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "200 to 900 mcg per day, under the skin", "studied_dose": "About 4.2 mg per day, into a vein", "studied_source": "The published Helsinn trial, which missed its endpoint", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "Five to twenty one times smaller, and by a route I found no human study of. The smaller number is smaller in a unit no one has converted.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Its drug program died two trials in; the second was never published." }, { "name": "CJC-1295", "slug": "cjc-1295", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/cjc-1295", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "1 to 2 mg per week, DAC version", "studied_dose": "30 to 60 mcg/kg, about 2.25 to 4.5 mg", "studied_source": "Teichman 2006, trials of 28 and 49 days", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "A quarter to a half of one studied injection. Lower, not higher, and still a dose no trial administered.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "The DAC version's program ended early; the no-DAC version sold today was never studied at all." }, { "name": "MK-677", "slug": "mk-677", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/mk-677", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "10 to 25 mg once daily", "studied_dose": "25 mg, the top of three arms", "studied_source": "A 1996 dose ranging study in 32 people aged 64 to 81", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The convention matches a studied dose, but one chosen for being the largest tried in 32 elderly people. Children in the active Phase 3 are dosed per kilogram. Nobody re-derived it for adults.", "medicine_status": "trials", "medicine_status_meaning": "In active clinical development. Approved nowhere yet.", "medicine_note": "An active Phase 3 — for children with growth hormone deficiency, dosed per kilogram." }, { "name": "Semax", "slug": "semax", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/semax", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "500 to 3,000 mcg, usually injected", "studied_dose": "800 to 8,000 mcg, up the nose", "studied_source": "The Russian 0.1 percent label", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "Below the label range and by a different route. Almost everything sold here is injected; every published study went intranasally.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "A prescription drug in Russia; FDA's reviewers recommended against compounding it in the US." }, { "name": "Tesamorelin", "slug": "tesamorelin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/tesamorelin", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "2 mg a day, from grey market vials, run in cycles", "studied_dose": "2 mg a day, continuously, for 26 weeks to a year", "studied_source": "Falutz 2007 in 412 adults with HIV, plus three later trials at the same dose", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The number matches the dose in every published trial, and the product it was approved for is gone. What is sold as medicine now is 1.4 mg a day, and 1.28 mg in the version that replaced it, in formulations both labels call not substitutable. Every trial dosed continuously, and no published evaluation of the weeks on, weeks off cycling turned up.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "For HIV-associated visceral fat. The 2 mg product the convention copies is gone." }, { "name": "Selank", "slug": "selank", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/selank", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "900 mcg a day from the drops, 1,350 quoted by vendors", "studied_dose": "No trial has ever reported a dose", "studied_source": "Three Russian trials, 192 patients, no dose in any of them", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. None of the three trials reports a dose or a treatment length, so both circulating numbers came from somewhere other than a study: 900 mcg per day is a derivation from assuming 20 drops to a millilitre of the Russian nasal drops, and the 1,350 mcg per day that vendors attribute to the 2008 trial is absent from every primary source.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "A Russian nasal drop. None of its three trials reports a dose." }, { "name": "GHK-Cu", "slug": "ghk-cu", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ghk-cu", "category": "recovery", "circulating_dose": "1 to 2 mg a day under the skin, some say 3", "studied_dose": "No injection into a person that I could find", "studied_source": "Every published human study applied it to skin, and the 1994 gel's strength is not stated", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I could not find a published study injecting it into a person by any route. The human evidence that does exist is a cream on a wound, and even the 2 percent strength quoted for it on vendor pages is not in the paper. The circulating numbers do match the syringe: at 25 mg/mL, 1 mg is 4 units, 2 mg is 8, 3 mg is 12.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "A cosmetic cream ingredient; no injectable form is approved anywhere." }, { "name": "MOTS-c", "slug": "mots-c", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/mots-c", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "5 to 10 mg per dose, two or three times a week up to daily", "studied_dose": "No human dose has ever been published", "studied_source": "Every published dose is a mouse dose, 0.5 to 15 mg per kg per day", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. Every dose in the record was given to a mouse, into the abdominal cavity, and the one completed human trial used CB4211, a modified version rather than MOTS-c itself. Vendors say they reached the number by scaling the mouse doses by body surface area, and running that conversion on the 15 mg per kg dose does not land at 5 to 10 mg.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Only CB4211, a modified analog, ever reached a human trial." }, { "name": "KPV", "slug": "kpv", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/kpv", "category": "recovery", "circulating_dose": "200 to 400 mcg a day injected, 250 mcg twice daily by mouth", "studied_dose": "No human dose has ever been published", "studied_source": "The only figure in the literature is 16 mcg/kg/day in mice, by feeding tube", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. Scaling that mouse figure the standard way lands near 90 mcg a day for an adult, which puts the oral convention five to ten times above the only number the literature can carry, and that number came from a mouse getting nanoparticles down a feeding tube. The injected convention sits above nothing at all, because I found no published injection of KPV in any species.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Epithalon", "slug": "epithalon", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/epithalon", "category": "longevity", "circulating_dose": "10 mg a dose under the skin, 50 or 100 mg a course, one to two times a year", "studied_dose": "0.5 mg a day, sprayed under the tongue", "studied_source": "Ivko 2021, 20 women on a 20 day spray, the only randomised study of the four unit chain", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "Twenty times the only dose the four unit chain has been given a person, and by a route no published study was found using. Trace the 10 mg and it lands on the 2003 extract paper, whose St Petersburg cohort gave 10 mg into muscle daily for 10 days, 100 mg a course, digit for digit the circulating schedule. The agent in that trial was Epithalamin, a bovine pineal extract that FDA states is a different substance, and no vendor or clinic page was found deriving the 10 mg from any study of the chain itself.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "The human record belongs to Epithalamin, a cow-gland extract FDA calls a different substance." }, { "name": "NAD+", "slug": "nad", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/nad", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "250 to 1000 mg a session into a vein, 100 to 500 mg under the skin", "studied_dose": "10 mg a day into a vein, for seven days", "studied_source": "Yu 2026, 180 adults with damaged hearts, the only study sized for an outcome", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "The 500 to 1500 mg the wellness industry infuses is fifty to a hundred and fifty times the 10 mg a day of the one adequately sized randomised trial, and above the 100 mg that is the highest registered intravenous human dose those searches found. I found no published human dose-finding or dose-response study of injected NAD+ by any route, and no published human study at all of the under the skin form. That convention traces to a 2014 conference poster with no peer-reviewed publication I could find.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "No approved injectable NAD+ exists; one compounded version drew a Class I recall." }, { "name": "Sermorelin", "slug": "sermorelin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/sermorelin", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "200 to 300 mcg under the skin nightly, titrated toward 500 mcg", "studied_dose": "2 mg nightly, or 2,000 mcg", "studied_source": "Vittone 1997, the only adult treatment study the author could find, 11 men, six weeks, no control group", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The convention sits at about one seventh to one tenth of both figures it could be held against: the pediatric label dose of 30 mcg/kg scales to roughly 2,100 mcg in a 70 kg adult, and the one adult study used a flat 2 mg. Grey market doses normally drift upward. This one drifted down, and there is no approved adult labelling and no adult dose finding study behind it.", "medicine_status": "withdrawn", "medicine_status_meaning": "This molecule was an approved medicine once. The product is gone.", "medicine_note": "Both approvals, pediatric and diagnostic, were withdrawn in 2009. What circulates is compounded." }, { "name": "Melanotan II", "slug": "melanotan-ii", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/melanotan-ii", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "250 to 500 mcg daily to load, some to 1,000 mcg, then 500 mcg twice weekly or 250 mcg once or twice weekly", "studied_dose": "0.025 mg/kg, about 1.75 mg for a 70 kg adult", "studied_source": "Recommended by the 1996 phase I and used in all three later trials. Four trials, 43 men, 1996 to 2000.", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The convention sits below the tested amount rather than above it. The three later trials used 0.025 mg/kg, about 1.75 mg for a 70 kg adult, and the 1996 phase I ran 0.01 to 0.03 mg/kg, roughly 0.7 to 2.1 mg at that weight, so what circulates is between a seventh and a third of what anybody was given. I could not trace it to a derivation: one says the figures are extrapolated from the published research range and then names no publication, and another concedes the loading and maintenance models are community-derived.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Abandoned in development. A related molecule, PT-141, was approved instead." }, { "name": "PT-141", "slug": "pt-141", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/pt-141", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "1.0 to 2.0 mg under the skin in men, reported as convention", "studied_dose": "1.75 mg under the skin, in premenopausal women", "studied_source": "Two phase 3 trials, NCT02333071 and NCT02338960, in 1,267 premenopausal women. The only published male efficacy doses under the skin were 4 mg and 6 mg, in men sildenafil had not helped.", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The number matches, and unusually for this reference it is traceable. The 1.75 mg was lifted off the Vyleesi label, where it is the approved dose for premenopausal women and the top of a phase 2b trial that compared 0.75, 1.25 and 1.75 mg in 327 of them. That same label's Limitations of Use name men as a group the drug is not indicated for. No male dose-finding study supports the number, I could not find a published trial of any design giving a man the 1.75 mg subcutaneous dose, and against the only published male subcutaneous efficacy doses, 4 mg and 6 mg, the convention runs at roughly a third to a half.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As Vyleesi, for premenopausal women. The label names men as not indicated." }, { "name": "GHRP-2", "slug": "ghrp-2", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ghrp-2", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "100 to 300 mcg per injection under the skin, one to three times daily, most commonly 200 mcg", "studied_dose": "100 mcg, one injection into a vein", "studied_source": "The Japanese label, marketed since February 2005: one slow injection into a vein, given fasting, for the diagnosis of growth hormone secretion deficiency. The nearest repeated dosing is Nijland, 100 mcg under the skin once daily for five days in nine healthy young men.", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "The approval covers a single administration as a test, one slow injection into a vein given fasting, and it says nothing about the second dose. What circulates is up to three injections a day under the skin, run in cycles. The bottom of that range is the same 100 mcg as the Japanese diagnostic dose and the Nijland protocol, and I could not establish any derivation for it, beyond noting that nobody appears to have reasoned from either. Across those five days of daily injections the peak growth hormone fell from a mean of 83 mcg/L to 51, and mean serum IGF-1 did not move at all. It moved under a 30 day pump and under a drip into a vein, not under an injection.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "In Japan, as a single diagnostic injection to test a pituitary — not as a treatment." }, { "name": "GHRP-6", "slug": "ghrp-6", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ghrp-6", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "100 to 300 mcg under the skin, two to three times daily", "studied_dose": "1 mcg/kg into a vein, about 80 to 100 mcg", "studied_source": "Bowers 1990, 18 normal men, and the same dose and route reused exactly in five later studies", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The number matches, and unusually for this reference it is traceable. Bowers 1990 set 1 mcg/kg into a vein as its top rung, Borges 1997, Pandya 1998, Muller 2001, Micic 2002 and Alaioubi 2010 all reused that dose and that route exactly, and for an 80 to 100 kg man that is 80 to 100 mcg, which lands on the flat 100 mcg the community uses. Above that bottom rung the convention keeps going, to 300 mcg an injection and 200 to 900 mcg a day. The transfer is the part I found no validation of: the published dose is a single bolus into a vein for acute provocation, the convention is repeated injection under the skin for weeks, and I found no human study measuring blood levels after an injection under the skin, no dose response by that route, and no study of repeated daily dosing under the skin of GHRP-6 alone. The one exposure under the skin on record put GHRP-6, GHRP-2 and sermorelin in at once.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Hexarelin", "slug": "hexarelin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/hexarelin", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "About 100 mcg an injection under the skin, two to three times daily for 200 to 300 mcg a day, several call 200 mcg twice daily standard and some go higher", "studied_dose": "1.5 mcg/kg twice daily, about 210 mcg a day at 70 kg", "studied_source": "Rahim, O'Neill and Shalet, 12 healthy elderly people, 16 weeks under the skin", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The convention lands on a dose that was actually given, by the same route. 1.5 mcg/kg twice daily works out at about 105 mcg per injection and 210 mcg per day for a 70 kg adult, or 120 mcg and 240 mcg per day at 80 kg. What that study found at 16 weeks was a fall of roughly 45 percent in the growth hormone response, while across the same 20 weeks insulin like growth factor 1, the blood marker growth hormone normally drives up, did not change significantly, and neither did the protein that carries it, P = 0.24 and P = 0.74, and total body fat, lean body mass and bone mineral density had not changed at week 16 either. I could not establish any published derivation for the 100 mcg figure, and the cycles of about 6 to 8 weeks with a 4 to 8 week break are framed explicitly as managing the fading response.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "IGF-1 LR3", "slug": "igf-1-lr3", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/igf-1-lr3", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "Roughly 20 to 100 mcg a day under the skin, in cycles of about 4 to 6 weeks", "studied_dose": "No dose in a person that I could find", "studied_source": "I found no study giving it to a human being, and no registered trial. Across the records reviewed, every dose is an animal dose.", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I found no published study in which it was given to a human being and no registered trial. Per kilogram the convention is small rather than large: about 0.25 to 1.25 micrograms/kg/day for an 80 kg adult, and every published dose sits above it, from about 28 micrograms/kg/day in growth restricted fetal sheep, which is 22 to 112 times higher, up to about 2,133 to 2,667 in steroid treated rats. The pig bolus doses that produced measurable hypoglycaemia were 20 to 50 micrograms/kg in one injection, 16 to 200 times the convention. I found no derivation for the 20 to 100 mcg anywhere: no allometric scaling from a named animal study, no dose ranging work, no pharmacokinetic anchor. Sitting under the animal doses is not a safety finding, because I could not find a measurement in a person at any dose.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Built as a lab reagent for growing protein in bacteria; no human study by any route." }, { "name": "HGH Fragment 176-191", "slug": "hgh-fragment-176-191", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/hgh-fragment-176-191", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "250 to 500 mcg a day under the skin in 8 to 12 week cycles, or 200 to 500 mcg fasted for about four weeks", "studied_dose": "No human dose of the fragment was found", "studied_source": "Six searches across four databases on 2026-08-05 found no human study of it", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. Six searches across four databases found no human study of the unmodified fragment, and the author could not establish where the 200 to 500 mcg convention came from and would not invent a lineage for it. Every human dose on record in this family belongs to AOD-9604, a modified copy sixteen daltons and two CAS numbers away: 25 to 400 mcg/kg into a vein and 0.25 mg to 54 mg by mouth, an oral range spanning a factor of 216 from bottom to top, and nothing in that spread produces 250 to 500 mcg a day under the skin of a person. FDA reported it did not identify human exposure even to AOD-9604 by the subcutaneous or transdermal route. The 250 to 500 mcg tabulated in a 2026 journal review is self-reported forum protocols, and a forum number reprinted in a journal table is still a forum number.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Every human trial in this family belongs to AOD-9604, a modified copy." }, { "name": "5-Amino-1MQ", "slug": "5-amino-1mq", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/5-amino-1mq", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "50 to 150 mg a day by mouth, convention rather than evidence", "studied_dose": "No human dose I could find, by any route", "studied_source": "PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, the EU register and Europe PMC, no human study in any of them", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I could not find a published human study of this compound by any route. Every efficacy result came out of a needle in a rodent, dosed per kilogram of animal, one experiment at three injections a day, and the retail item is a capsule swallowed once. The circulating number is convention rather than evidence and I found no derivation for it. Under the same name, retail listings sell capsules at 500 micrograms, one hundredth to one three hundredth of the protocol dose.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "AOD-9604", "slug": "aod-9604", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/aod-9604", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "300 mcg a day under the skin, inside a 250 to 500 mcg band", "studied_dose": "0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg a day, swallowed", "studied_source": "METAOD006, the phase 2b in 502 adults over 24 weeks, which missed", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The circulating band lands on the two smallest arms of the phase 2b, 0.25 and 0.5 mg, and those were swallowed rather than injected. I could not establish a stated derivation for the injectable numbers, only a coincidence of magnitude, since the same 1 mg ceiling appears in the self-affirmed food status. Every human dose in the published record went into a vein, 25 to 400 mcg/kg as single doses, or was swallowed, 0.25 mg to 54 mg daily, and I could not find one published human study using the route it is sold by. The trial those numbers echo did not beat placebo, and the sponsor closed the obesity programme in February 2007.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Six human trials failed to beat placebo; the program closed in 2007." }, { "name": "Cagrilintide", "slug": "cagrilintide", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/cagrilintide", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "2.4 mg a week from a 0.25 mg start, or up to 4.5 mg", "studied_dose": "0.3 to 4.5 mg a week, including 2.4 mg", "studied_source": "Lau 2021 in 706 adults, plus single agent arms of 302 and 152 in two phase 3 trials", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "2.4 mg is a dose the single agent really was given, and it is also semaglutide's share of the fixed pen, which is where the convention came from. The one dose finding trial in the single agent found 4.5 mg did better, minus 10.8 against minus 9.7 percent. The monotherapy trials that would settle it started in November 2025 and I could not find their dose in either registration.", "medicine_status": "trials", "medicine_status_meaning": "In active clinical development. Approved nowhere yet.", "medicine_note": "In Novo Nordisk's trials, alone and inside CagriSema." }, { "name": "Mazdutide", "slug": "mazdutide", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/mazdutide", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "2.5 mg weekly for four weeks, then 5 mg weekly", "studied_dose": "4 mg and 6 mg weekly, for 48 weeks", "studied_source": "GLORY-1, 610 Chinese adults, the trial the weight approval was built on", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The most copied chart starts at 2.5 mg and settles at 5 mg, and no published mazdutide trial used either number as a maintenance target in obesity. Both came off the vial rather than a paper, 10 mg reconstituted with 3.0 mL of bacteriostatic water. There is an approved human ladder sitting right there to compare against, 2 mg then 4 mg then up to 6 mg, which almost never happens in this reference, and the grey market went to vial arithmetic anyway. A second guide ends on 6 or 9 mg, which at least ends on a dose trials have used, though it skips the label's 2 mg start, and it cites for its titration speed a 2025 phase 2b trial in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology that I could not find.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "Twice, both in China, nowhere else." }, { "name": "Tesofensine", "slug": "tesofensine", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/tesofensine", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "0.25 mg to 0.5 mg by mouth, once daily", "studied_dose": "0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 mg by mouth, once daily", "studied_source": "Astrup 2008, TIPO-1, 203 obese adults over 24 weeks", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The convention is the trial dose, which is rare here. What does not travel with it is the rest of the trial: every obesity trial paired the drug with an energy restricted diet, so I could not find a published result for the drug alone, and they all ran 24 weeks and stopped. The 1.0 mg arm behind the 10.6 percent was dropped at the FDA meeting before the large trial meant to settle the heart rate question, and that trial was never run. The paper the numbers come from carries a Lancet Expression of Concern from 2013 about unrecorded adverse events, and I found it still standing.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "One phase 3 ran; no paper and no approval followed." }, { "name": "SS-31", "slug": "ss-31", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ss-31", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "0.1 to 40 mg a day under the skin", "studied_dose": "40 mg a day under the skin", "studied_source": "Five published trials and the approved label, every one in people with a diagnosed disease", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The headline number is real for once. Forty milligrams a day under the skin is the dose in five published trials and on the approved label, and every one of those was in people with a diagnosed disease. Where the convention departs, it departs downward. I could find no human trial reporting a clinical result at 2, 5 or 10 mg a day, and the label mentions that lower range only as a span over which blood levels were measured, so somebody has given 2 mg a day and published nothing but the blood levels. I looked for a study in any species testing the three times weekly schedule several pages give, and could not find one.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As elamipretide, for Barth syndrome, on eight patients — and bulk powder is usually a different salt." }, { "name": "Humanin", "slug": "humanin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/humanin", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "0.1 mg to 10 mg per dose under the skin, two or three times a week up to daily", "studied_dose": "No human dose I could find, by any route", "studied_source": "Every published dose is an animal dose. Yen 2020 gave 100 mice the analogue S14G at 4 mg per kg into the abdominal cavity", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. I could find no published study, and no registered one, giving humanin or any version of it to a person by any route, so every schedule in circulation sits beside an animal number rather than a human one. Most of those animal numbers belong to S14G, the one letter mutant, while the vial holds the other molecule. Two of the three sites quoting doses say themselves that their figures are extrapolation from rodent work, and the spread between the three is a hundredfold for the same two molecules.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "SLU-PP-332", "slug": "slu-pp-332", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/slu-pp-332", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "250 mcg to 1.5 mg a day under the skin, or 1 to 5 mg, or 400 to 800 mg by mouth", "studied_dose": "No human dose I could find, by any route", "studied_source": "Four mouse studies, 25 to 50 mg per kg into the abdominal cavity", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. Every published dose I found was given to a mouse, by injection into the abdominal cavity, and the scientists who made the compound wrote that it lacks oral bioavailability, meaning it does not get from the gut into the blood. Most of what is sold is a capsule. The 400 to 800 mg oral band that circulates is about where a body surface area conversion of the mouse dose lands, roughly 570 mg a day for a 70 kilogram adult, which is arithmetic applied to a route its own inventors say does not work.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "BAM-15", "slug": "bam-15", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/bam-15", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "10 micrograms to 60 mg a day, depending on the page", "studied_dose": "No published human dose I could find, at any route", "studied_source": "All 72 PubMed records retrieved and every title read; the doses in them are mice, flies and worms", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. The 200 mg per kilogram mouse figure quoted as proof of a wide margin is where dosing stopped because the compound would not dissolve any further, not a toxic dose anybody reached. Scaling the 85 mg per kilogram mouse dose by body surface area lands near 480 mg a day for a 70 kg adult, which is arithmetic rather than a studied dose and does not make 480 mg safe or sensible, and it sits above every circulating number, the 50 mg capsule at about a tenth of it. None of the circulating numbers shows a derivation, and the smallest and largest are six thousand times apart.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "AICAR", "slug": "aicar", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/aicar", "category": "mitochondria", "circulating_dose": "1 to 25 mg a day under the skin, on pages that disagree", "studied_dose": "42 mg per kg into a vein, about 2,940 mg at 70 kg, once", "studied_source": "RED-CABG, 3,080 adults having heart surgery, stopped for futility", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The convention sits far below everything that was tested. A whole 50 milligram vial is about one fifty-ninth of the single infusion RED-CABG gave, and that trial found the bad outcome on 5.1 percent of the drug group against 5.0 percent on the dummy infusion. Scaling the mouse dose by body surface area, which is arithmetic done here rather than a published derivation, gives about 2,840 milligrams a day at 70 kilograms, roughly 110 times the larger dosing page's 25 milligrams and between about 950 and about 2,800 times the smaller page's 1 to 3. Every human dose I found went into a vein or an artery, and I could find no study of any design at the milligram doses that circulate, given under the skin.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "About 7,100 people randomised as acadesine; never approved." }, { "name": "L-Carnitine, injectable", "slug": "l-carnitine-injectable", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/l-carnitine-injectable", "category": "metabolic", "circulating_dose": "250 to 1,000 mg into muscle, or a drip with no stated dose", "studied_dose": "4 grams a day, into a vein", "studied_source": "Zhang 2014, 30 patients with metabolic syndrome, inside a five day modified fast", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The numbers that circulate sit below every injected dose in the published trial record, and they are also a different route: the vendor figures go into muscle, and every injected dose in that trial record went into a vein. At the top of the range they run into the label's own dialysis dose, which is 700 to 1,400 mg per session in a 70 kilogram adult. Neither clinic page in the entry publishes a milligram figure at all, and one low-quality vendor-facing aggregator states that no peer reviewed randomised trials evaluate that range, attributing it to protocols passed around on forums. What the numbers do line up with is the syringe. The compounded product is 500 mg per millilitre, so 250, 500 and 1,000 mg are half a millilitre, one and two, which the entry reads as packaging and labels inference rather than derivation.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "For carnitine deficiency and dialysis patients — not for fat." }, { "name": "Cerebrolysin", "slug": "cerebrolysin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/cerebrolysin", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "5 to 10 mL a day, under the skin or into a muscle", "studied_dose": "10 to 50 mL a day into a vein, in patients", "studied_source": "The Austrian label's table by condition, and the stroke and dementia trials behind it", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The circulating amount runs at or below the bottom of every row of that table, its upper end of 10 mL landing exactly on the bottom of the dementia row. The reason it stops there looks mechanical rather than clinical, and that is a reading rather than something the label states: 5 mL is the most the label allows into a muscle, 10 mL the most allowed as a straight injection into a vein, and from 10 mL the label recommends a drip. There is a second gap in the route. Injection under the skin appears nowhere on the label, which lists muscle, vein and drip only, and a PubMed search for cerebrolysin and subcutaneous returned seven records, every one a rodent study or one that does not name a human population.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "Licensed in Austria since 1996; never in the US or UK." }, { "name": "P-21", "slug": "p-21", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/p-21", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "500 mcg to 1 mg once daily, under the skin", "studied_dose": "No dose in a person that I could find", "studied_source": "Every dose in the record came from a mouse or a rat, by chow, a stomach tube, an implanted pellet or a shot into the abdomen", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because P-21 has not been given to a person in any published record I could find. The doses that exist are rodent doses by routes the market does not use: 25 nanomoles a day leaking from a pellet under the skin, 60 nanomoles per gram of feed in chow, 500 nanomoles per kilogram down a stomach tube, and 750 nanomoles a day into the abdominal cavity, that last one in the study where most motor measures did not move. One seller shows its working, and its own scaling of the animal figures lands about six times and about fifty times above the 500 micrograms the same market runs. I found no bioavailability figure published for any route in any species, so no arithmetic gets you from the pellet to the syringe.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "DSIP", "slug": "dsip", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/dsip", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "100 to 300 mcg under the skin, once in the evening", "studied_dose": "About 1,485 mcg into a vein, for a 70 kg adult", "studied_source": "25 nmol/kg, or 21.2 mcg/kg, the dose most of the human sleep trials used", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "The circulating figure is roughly 5 to 15 times smaller per kilogram than the trial dose, and it goes in by a route neither FDA's reviewers nor I found a human trial for. Every human administration whose route I could establish went into a vein, apart from one study up the nose that carries no abstract. I could find no published derivation for the 100 to 300 mcg number, and the dosing page I opened describes those figures as coming from research write ups rather than clinical trials. Against the two cat experiments, both near 100 mcg/kg under the skin, it is 24 to 71 times smaller.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Dihexa", "slug": "dihexa", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/dihexa", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "About 5 to 50 mg a day by mouth across vendor and community pages, no two agreeing", "studied_dose": "No dose in a person that I could find", "studied_source": "Every human figure belongs to fosgonimeton, dihexa with a phosphate group added so it can be injected", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because no human oral dose of dihexa has been established in anything I could find. Every human figure belongs to fosgonimeton, the same molecule with a phosphate group on it so it can be injected, given at 40 mg or 70 mg a day under the skin rather than swallowed. None of the vendor or community pages I opened carrying an oral figure showed its working. Converting the rat oral dose of 2 mg/kg by body surface area lands near 22.6 mg for a seventy kilogram adult, but that is arithmetic worked here rather than a derivation I found anybody publishing, and the published method divides the result by a further ten before anyone is dosed, which puts it at 2.26 mg.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Its drug-form analog missed its endpoint in the one large trial." }, { "name": "PE-22-28", "slug": "pe-22-28", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/pe-22-28", "category": "cognitive", "circulating_dose": "100 to 2,000 mcg per dose, mostly up the nose", "studied_dose": "No human dose I could find, by any route", "studied_source": "Every published dose is in a mouse: 3.0 to 4.0 mcg/kg into the abdominal cavity, and 1 mg/kg by tube into the stomach in one panel", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I could find no published or registered study giving PE-22-28, spadin or any analogue of either to a person. Every published dose is in a mouse, and the two routes the market runs on, up the nose and under the skin, returned nothing when I paired either name with them on PubMed. Scaling the mouse dose by the standard body surface area conversion gives about 17 to 23 micrograms for a 70 kilogram adult, which puts the low end of the convention roughly four to six times above that and the high end ninety to a hundred and twenty times. That arithmetic is a check on the method, not a dose.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Follistatin-344", "slug": "follistatin-344", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/follistatin-344", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "100 to 200 mcg a day under the skin, in cycles of 10 to 30 days, community convention not a tested dose", "studied_dose": "No study I found gave the protein to a person on its own, by any route", "studied_source": "93 PubMed clinical trial records and 79 registry studies searched, and every human study I found that gave follistatin gave a gene", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I found no published study giving follistatin protein to a person on its own by any route. Every human result I found under this name came from delivering the gene, carried in by a virus or given as a plasmid, which is a loop of bare DNA, and a gene keeps expressing inside a muscle fibre for months in a way an injection does not. The doses in the gene therapy record are counts of gene carrying virus particles per kilogram of body weight, and those do not convert into micrograms of protein. The two masses in the record run the other way: ACE-083, an engineered follistatin fusion, used 50 to 200 mg into one muscle, 250 to 2,000 times the daily microgram convention, and the dosage page carrying the convention concedes that no published human dose-response studies exist.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "PEG-MGF", "slug": "peg-mgf", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/peg-mgf", "category": "growth-hormone", "circulating_dose": "200 to 400 mcg two to three times a week, and daily in the same row", "studied_dose": "No dose in a person, or in a live animal of any species, that I could find", "studied_source": "FDA states it has identified no human exposure data on PEG-MGF products by any route", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. I found no published study giving PEG-MGF to a person and none giving it to a live animal of any species, and the regulator says the same about the human half. The nearest published figure per kilogram I found belongs to the unpegylated 24 amino acid peptide, injected into a surgical bone defect in 27 rabbits at 28.5 and 57 micrograms per kilogram, where only the higher dose separated from no treatment. Against that dose the circulating amount is 11 to 23 times smaller per kilogram, and it went into bone rather than muscle or fat.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Pinealon", "slug": "pinealon", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/pinealon", "category": "longevity", "circulating_dose": "5 to 10 mg a day injected, or 10 to 20 mg swallowed", "studied_dose": "200 mcg a day, swallowed, for two weeks", "studied_source": "Nazimko 2012, one 100 mcg capsule twice a day in locomotive crew, no participant count given", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "The swallowed convention is a hundred times the one human amount I found in a published paper, on the same route: 200 micrograms a day against a vendor top end of 20 milligrams. The injected convention matches one published human figure only, and it is the 5 milligram arm reserved for the most severely injured in a ten day study I found inside a patent, whose mildest arm got 1 microgram. I found no page tracing its milligram figure to any study, and one says outright that the number was shaped by the product format and community habit rather than by a dose response trial.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "FOXO4-DRI", "slug": "foxo4-dri", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/foxo4-dri", "category": "longevity", "circulating_dose": "25 mg into a vein three times, or 250 to 500 mcg daily", "studied_dose": "No dose in a person that I could find", "studied_source": "Every animal dose I could read is 5 mg per kilogram, in mice", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because I found no study in which a person received it. The 25 mg figure does have a derivation, which is rare: a 2018 blog post took the mouse dose and scaled it to a 60 kg adult. The daily microgram ladder is not a scaling of anything I could find, being roughly a fiftieth of the intravenous figure given about thirty seven times as many times, by a route I found no published animal study using. Under both sits one number, 5 mg per kilogram in mice, and in nine years I found no living animal given more or less.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "Glutathione, injectable", "slug": "glutathione-injectable", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/glutathione-injectable", "category": "longevity", "circulating_dose": "600 to 1,400 mg per session, two to three times a week", "studied_dose": "600 mg twice a day, and 1,400 mg three times a week, into a vein", "studied_source": "Two Parkinson's disease studies: nine patients uncontrolled, and 21 randomised at P = 0.32", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "Both ends of the circulating range are real doses from real studies, and both studies are Parkinson's disease in patients rather than skin or energy in healthy people. The number travelled without its schedule: Sechi gave 600 mg twice a day for thirty days, about 8,400 mg a week against the 1,200 to 1,800 a clinic schedule comes to in a week, and three times a week is Hauser's schedule from the trial that missed at P = 0.32. I found no study behind the twice weekly end. For skin lightening the figure came from the sellers instead, and the single trial FDA and I both found either search found used the top of the marketing range.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "No approved glutathione drug exists in the US; the vials are compounded or grey." }, { "name": "Thymosin Alpha-1", "slug": "thymosin-alpha-1", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/thymosin-alpha-1", "category": "immune", "circulating_dose": "1.6 mg under the skin, twice weekly", "studied_dose": "1.6 mg under the skin, twice weekly, and every 12 hours in sepsis", "studied_source": "The Italian label's own dosing table, 900 micrograms per square metre of body surface", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The number is right and the reason for it is not what sellers say. 1.6 mg is not a chosen dose: the Italian label sets 900 micrograms per square metre of body surface area and prints a height and weight table, and every row of that table is that figure times the patient's surface area, to the nearest 10 micrograms. An average adult lands at 1.6 mg, which is a vial size. The drift is indication and population. The label covers adjuvanting influenza vaccination in immunocompromised patients, the trials people cite are hepatitis and sepsis, and every completed trial I found that measured whether people got better enrolled patients rather than healthy adults.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "In Italy, for flu-vaccine support in immunocompromised patients. The US compounding vote went 4 to 17 against." }, { "name": "Thymalin", "slug": "thymalin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/thymalin", "category": "immune", "circulating_dose": "10 mg a day for 5 to 10 days, injected under the skin", "studied_dose": "10 mg a day for 5 to 10 days, injected into a muscle", "studied_source": "The Russian label, and every published human use I could open across 25 years", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "Nothing drifted on quantity and everything drifted on route. Ten milligrams sits inside the label's own 5 to 20 mg range, is one whole vial, and is the dose in all five published human uses I could open, with the course arithmetic landing inside the label's 30 to 100 mg range too. The label lists injection into a muscle and no other route, every human dose I found in a paper went that way, and I found no published human study giving thymalin under the skin. One vendor protocol page prints 30 units and calls it about 30 micrograms; thirty units is 0.3 mL, and a 10 mg vial made up in the 1 to 2 mL the label specifies holds 3 mg or 1.5 mg in that volume.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "Registered in Russia — where the registered active substance is calf thymus extract." }, { "name": "LL-37", "slug": "ll-37", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ll-37", "category": "immune", "circulating_dose": "100 to 250 micrograms a day under the skin, some pages to 500", "studied_dose": "0.5 to 3.2 mg per mL on a wound, and 250 to 500 micrograms into each tumour", "studied_source": "Three randomised wound trials and one melanoma injection trial", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is a human dosing record and none of it is the route being sold. Every randomised trial put LL-37 on a wound bed; the injection trial I found put it into melanoma deposits in the skin, not under it. Two of the pages carrying the circulating figures say where they came from, and neither says a study: one calls them anecdotal and unsupported by scientific data, the other credits supplier and community sources. What they look like instead is vial arithmetic, and that reading is mine: two millilitres into a five milligram vial gives 2.5 mg per mL, which makes 100 micrograms a round 0.04 mL and 250 a round 0.10 mL.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Four human trials, on wounds and into tumours — none by the route it is sold for." }, { "name": "VIP", "slug": "vip", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/vip", "category": "immune", "circulating_dose": "50 micrograms per spray, four times a day, into the nose", "studied_dose": "50 micrograms four times a day, inhaled through a nebuliser", "studied_source": "Eight pulmonary hypertension patients in 2003, and 20 sarcoidosis patients in 2010", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The number matches digit for digit and was never re-derived for the new route. 200 micrograms a day in four doses was an inhaled dose in eight patients in 2003, reappeared as an inhaled dose in sarcoidosis in 2010, and was carried to the nose in 2013 with the paper's stated reason being the 2010 study. I found no study establishing what 50 micrograms into a nostril delivers against the same amount misted into a pair of lungs, and no human study of how much of a nasal dose reaches the blood. It then drifted up three ways, to 400 micrograms a day on a pharmacy's own directions and 600 in the protocol document.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "One authorisation found, and it is a combination product, not the lone molecule in the vial." }, { "name": "ARA-290", "slug": "ara-290", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ara-290", "category": "immune", "circulating_dose": "4 mg a day under the skin, in blocks of four weeks and longer", "studied_dose": "4 mg a day under the skin for 28 days", "studied_source": "A 64 patient sarcoidosis trial, and a 10 volunteer exposure study behind the number", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The dose is correct and vendors quote it accurately, which is rare enough here to say plainly. A crossover in 10 healthy volunteers matched 4 mg under the skin to the 2 mg into a vein that produced the first result, 59 nanogram-minutes per millilitre against 65, so the subcutaneous number reproduces the exposure of the injection that worked. The drift is population, duration and route. Every efficacy trial enrolled patients with a diagnosed condition, four of the six studies ran 28 days, and the longest exposure I found anywhere was 12 weeks in nine people. More than one guide states that under the skin is the only route in the trial literature, and the intravenous pilot is why that is wrong.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Real randomised trials ran; no approval followed." }, { "name": "Melanotan I", "slug": "melanotan-1", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/melanotan-1", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "1 mg a day for 10 days, then 2 mg a week, injected", "studied_dose": "16 mg in a rod placed under the skin every two months", "studied_source": "The approved implant, in patients with a rare light sensitivity disease", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The monthly rate matches and nothing else does. A vendor page shows its working: the trials used a 16 mg implant every 60 days, which it converts to 8 mg a month, and 2 mg a week is the same monthly figure. On a four week month those agree; across a calendar year it is 104 mg against about 97 mg. What does not carry across is the delivery. The rod releases most of its content in the first two days, is absorbed over 50 to 60 days, and is placed by a trained physician three or four times a year in Europe. A weekly injection of a peptide with a half life measured in hours produces the opposite shape. The loading figure has no study behind it either: it sits at a fifth to a tenth of the daily amounts the injected trials used, and the page that prints it says experts encourage erring on the side of safety.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As a physician-placed implant for a rare light-sensitivity disease — not a vial." }, { "name": "Oxytocin", "slug": "oxytocin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/oxytocin", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "24 units by nose, and 100 to 500 micrograms under the skin", "studied_dose": "A drip into a vein, or ten units into a muscle after delivery", "studied_source": "The Pitocin label, which permits exactly those two routes", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "The gap here is route rather than indication, and the under the skin figures are the ones to look at twice. Converting at the international standard's 1.68 micrograms per unit, which is my arithmetic, 100 to 500 micrograms a day is roughly 60 to 300 units. A single dose vial of the approved American injection holds 10 units. I could not find a human trial of oxytocin under the skin at those amounts. The nasal convention is a different matter: 24 units is not a calculation but a physical object, six squirts of a commercial spray metered at 4 units each, and I could not find the study that chose it.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "As an injection for labour. The mood sprays sold online are approved nowhere this site could find." }, { "name": "Kisspeptin-10", "slug": "kisspeptin-10", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/kisspeptin-10", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "50 to 500 micrograms under the skin, 100 to 200 commonest", "studied_dose": "0.31 micrograms per kilogram into a vein, about 22 mcg for an adult", "studied_source": "FDA's record of the commonest studied intravenous bolus dose", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "Five to twenty times the commonest studied amount, and by a route that is not the studied one. FDA tabulated 24 human studies and roughly 300 subjects, footnoting that the total may be too high because subjects could overlap, and 23 of those 24 rows are intravenous only. The whole under the skin record FDA identified is one 2011 study in healthy women, at up to 32 nanomoles per kilogram, roughly 29 times what circulates, in which no reproductive hormone moved. Neither dosing page I read traces its figures to a study, and one says so in its own words.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "The US compounding vote was unanimous against: 0 for, 11 against." }, { "name": "Gonadorelin", "slug": "gonadorelin", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/gonadorelin", "category": "hormonal", "circulating_dose": "100 micrograms under the skin, two or three times a week", "studied_dose": "100 micrograms as a single diagnostic injection, or 5 to 20 per pulse", "studied_source": "The British diagnostic licence, and the Canadian pump licence", "gap_direction": "match", "gap_direction_meaning": "What people take matches an amount a study gave", "gap_note": "The quantity is right and the route is right, which is rare here, and the schedule is the whole problem. 100 micrograms is the live British diagnostic dose, given once, and it was the strength of the smallest discontinued American vial. Every therapeutic human use I found runs a wearable pump around the clock: the Canadian licence and the fertility studies fire every 90 minutes, which is 112 doses a week, and the 1989 mechanism experiment ran every two hours. The circulating protocol delivers two or three. That arithmetic is mine, from the documents named. The drug also clears in about 4 minutes on the British label, so Monday's injection is long gone before Thursday's.", "medicine_status": "approved", "medicine_status_meaning": "An approved product exists for this molecule. The vial sold on the grey market is not it.", "medicine_note": "The label is real; its rhythm — a pump pulsing 112 times a week — is not what 2 or 3 injections copy." }, { "name": "RAD-140", "slug": "rad-140", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/rad-140", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "20 to 30 mg a day for men, on an eight week cycle", "studied_dose": "50 to 150 mg a day, with 100 mg set as the maximum tolerated", "studied_source": "A completed phase 1 in women with metastatic breast cancer", "gap_direction": "below", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take less than what studies gave", "gap_note": "This one runs the opposite way to the rest of the shelf: what circulates sits below what was studied rather than above it. The completed trial gave 50 mg a day to six patients, 100 mg to thirteen and 150 mg to three, and set the maximum tolerated dose at 100 mg. The page publishing the 20 to 30 mg figure cites no human study for it. Sitting under a studied dose is not a safety finding, because that trial was in women with metastatic breast cancer taking it under supervision, and it raised one liver enzyme in 59.1 percent of them.", "medicine_status": "trials", "medicine_status_meaning": "In active clinical development. Approved nowhere yet.", "medicine_note": "Cancer-drug trials: one phase 1 completed, one trial recruiting." }, { "name": "RAD-150", "slug": "rad-150", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/rad-150", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "Sold as a RAD-140 ester. I found no dosing figure traceable to anything", "studied_dose": "Nothing, in any species", "studied_source": "Searched under RAD-150, RAD150 and TLB-150 on 10 August 2026", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. The molecule is drawn and registered, CAS 1208070-53-4, and the arithmetic of the ester claim closes exactly at 393.8 plus 104.1 equals 497.9. Everything after the drawing is missing: no paper under its name or CAS number, no registered trial, and no published analysis of what is sold under it. That is an empty file rather than a clean one, and the difference matters. Nothing published says it is harmful, because nothing published says anything about it.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "LGD-4033", "slug": "lgd-4033", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/lgd-4033", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "10 mg a day for men over 8 to 10 weeks, up to 15 for experienced users", "studied_dose": "1.0 mg a day for 21 days, and 2.0 mg a day for 12 weeks", "studied_source": "A phase 1 in 76 healthy men and a phase 2 in 108 hip fracture patients", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "Five to fifteen times the top dose of either trial. The 21 day phase 1 randomised 76 healthy men to a dummy or to 0.1, 0.3 or 1.0 mg, and the 12 week phase 2 in people recovering from a hip fracture topped out at 2.0 mg. The guide page carrying the 10 to 15 mg figures also tells readers that clinical trials support up to 222 mg a day for 14 days; its citation list has two entries, and the only trial among them is the 21 day study whose highest dose was 1.0 mg. The one published case report that gives a daily amount describes severe liver injury at 10 mg.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Two trials ran under the code VK5211; no approval and no active program found." }, { "name": "LGD-3033", "slug": "lgd-3033", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/lgd-3033", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure traceable to anything", "studied_dose": "Nothing, in any species", "studied_source": "Searched under LGD-3033 and LGD3033 on 10 August 2026", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, and the name is the whole problem. A PubMed search returns zero records under either spelling, and the only database entry the name produces is PubChem's record for LGD-3303, one digit away, where LGD-3033 sits among depositor supplied synonyms. LGD-3303 is a different chemotype, it is the earlier compound in the literature rather than a successor, and the papers on it are in rats. A European laboratory network lists both spellings in one scope line; the American watch list and a 2019 Senate bill carry only LGD-3303.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "MK-2866", "slug": "mk-2866", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/mk-2866", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "10 to 25 mg a day, reported as the commonest range on guide pages", "studied_dose": "3 mg a day for 147 days in the phase 3 trials", "studied_source": "Two completed phase 3 trials in people starting chemotherapy", "gap_direction": "above", "gap_direction_meaning": "People take more than was ever given in a study", "gap_note": "Three to eight times the phase 3 dose, and the trials are worth reading before the dose. Both carried two co-primary endpoints, a body scan measure and a stair climb measure, both scored as responder counts on advice the design paper attributes to the American regulator. At day 84 the scan showed more responders on the drug in both trials. The stair climb showed a smaller gap in the same direction in the first and went the wrong way in the second. Those registry records post percentages and confidence intervals and no statistical test of any kind, so nothing sourced to them says an endpoint passed.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "Reached phase 3 for cancer muscle-wasting; the program ended without approval." }, { "name": "YK-11", "slug": "yk-11", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/yk-11", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source", "studied_dose": "Nothing in a person", "studied_source": "Cell work in 2011, and one mouse study in bacterial sepsis", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, because nothing has been given to a person in any published study the searches found. The myostatin claim that the selling rests on comes from a 2013 experiment in which YK-11 induced follistatin, the protein that binds myostatin, in mouse muscle cells in a dish. One animal study exists, in bacterial sepsis. The identity is genuinely contested rather than settled: anti-doping files it among the SARMs, while its founding paper opens with the words a novel steroid compound and its chemical name carries the steroid nucleus.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "S4", "slug": "s4", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/s4", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source", "studied_dose": "Nothing in a person", "studied_source": "A 2024 review reports its preclinical work was suspended before phase 1", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against. The claim that defines this compound in the market, that it disturbs vision, is one I could not trace to a primary report. Three searches returned nothing, and the single published human case pairing andarine with a visual symptom is a man taking three compounds who arrived with blurred vision, a blood glucose of 558 and an HbA1c of 13.9 percent, whose eye examination excluded retinopathy. That is newly diagnosed diabetes rather than an andarine effect. A blindness report does sit in an adverse event database, filed under the generic keyword rather than under andarine.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "S23", "slug": "s23", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/s23", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source", "studied_dose": "Nothing in a person", "studied_source": "Rat work, injected under the skin, not swallowed", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, and the headline finding does not transfer the way the selling implies. The contraceptive result people cite gave S-23 to rats by injection under the skin together with estradiol benzoate, with four of six rendered azoospermic, no pregnancies, and full reversal at 100 days. Every efficacy figure this compound has comes from that kind of experiment. The searches behind this page found no study giving it by mouth, which is how it is sold.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "AC-262", "slug": "ac-262", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/ac-262", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source", "studied_dose": "Nothing in a person", "studied_source": "One primary pharmacology paper, in castrated male rats over two weeks", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, and the size of the absence is the finding. PubMed returns four records in total, three of them methods for detecting the compound in urine, and ClinicalTrials.gov returns none. The only work in a living animal since 2008 that the searches found is in two Thoroughbred horses. The 2026 anti-doping Prohibited List does not name it, though WADA's 2023 testing figures record one finding for it among the anabolic agents.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "SR-9009", "slug": "sr-9009", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/sr-9009", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "10 to 40 mg a day, with an instruction to redose every two to four hours", "studied_dose": "100 mg per kilogram, injected into the belly cavity, in mice", "studied_source": "The two mouse studies the selling rests on, both by injection", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "The gap is not quantity, it is whether a swallowed dose arrives at all. In the 2013 paper that measured it, oral availability came out at 2.2 percent in mice at 1 mg per kilogram, against 23.4 percent for one of the improved compounds in the same table, and the terminal half life on the intravenous side was about 33 minutes. Those authors wrote that these compounds would suit dosing by injection. Both famous mouse results obeyed that, giving 100 mg per kilogram into the abdominal cavity for 30 days. The vendor instruction to redose every two to four hours is the one place a sales page and a pharmacology paper agree.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" }, { "name": "GW-0742", "slug": "gw-0742", "url": "https://thelongevitydesk.org/compounds/gw-0742", "category": "sarms", "circulating_dose": "I found no dosing figure I could trace to a source", "studied_dose": "A single 15 mg dose by mouth, in a doping control excretion study", "studied_source": "Not an efficacy trial; it measured how long the compound stays detectable", "gap_direction": "none", "gap_direction_meaning": "Nothing to compare against: no human dose has ever been published", "gap_note": "There is nothing to compare against, and the thing to watch is what gets carried across rather than what gets scaled up. This is cardarine with one hydrogen swapped for a fluorine, acting on the same receptor, and the two year cancer studies people cite belong to cardarine: oral gavage in rats and mice over 104 weeks, with neoplastic findings in multiple tissues at all doses. No equivalent study of GW-0742 turned up in the searches, and one conference abstract has it reducing skin tumours in mice. The 2026 anti-doping list names cardarine and never names this one.", "medicine_status": "never", "medicine_status_meaning": "No approved product exists for this molecule anywhere, in any form.", "medicine_note": "" } ] }