AOD-9604
Growth hormone fragment · Also written hGH 176-191 or hGH fragment 176-191
- UK status
- Unlicensed medicine
- Availability
- Research use only
- Evidence base
- Human trials did not support the claims
- Controlled drug
- No, but WADA prohibited
Sequence
Fragment 176 to 191 of human growth hormone.
AOD-9604 is unusual among the compounds sold online: it was taken through real human trials for exactly the purpose it is marketed for. The trials did not support it. It is still sold.
01What it is
Human growth hormone is 191 amino acids long. AOD-9604 is a fragment of it, the last 16 residues, corresponding to the region associated with fat metabolism rather than growth.
The idea was elegant: isolate the fat-breakdown activity of growth hormone without the growth-promoting and glucose effects of the whole hormone. It is why the compound was given the informal name anti-obesity drug, from which AOD comes.
02UK legal and licensing status
AOD-9604 has no MHRA authorisation. Supplying it for human use in the UK without one is unlawful under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. It is not a controlled drug. It is sold as a research chemical labelled not for human consumption.
The FDA has proposed not to include AOD-9604 on the bulk drug substances list for compounding, citing safety concerns including immunogenicity and insufficient safety data.
Athletes: WADA names AOD-9604 and hGH 176-191 explicitly on the Prohibited List. Prohibited at all times.
03How it works
The proposed mechanism is stimulation of lipolysis, the breakdown of stored fat, and inhibition of its formation, through the fat-metabolism region of the growth hormone molecule, without acting through the growth hormone receptor itself and so without raising IGF-1.
04What the evidence shows
This is the part that matters, and it is the reason AOD-9604 deserves a place in this register.
AOD-9604 was developed as an obesity treatment and studied in human clinical trials. It did not demonstrate meaningful weight loss against placebo, and development for that indication did not proceed to approval. This is not an evidence gap. It is evidence, and it points the other way.
That distinction is worth holding on to. For BPC-157 the honest answer is that nobody knows because the trials have not been done. For AOD-9604 the trials were done and the result was negative. Anyone selling it for fat loss is selling a compound that was tested for fat loss and did not work.
It has since been marketed in some countries as a food or cosmetic ingredient, which is a regulatory category with a far lower evidential bar than a medicine and should not be read as validation.
Long-term safety in humans is not established, and the FDA has specifically flagged immunogenicity, the possibility of an immune response to the fragment, as a concern. As with any unlicensed injectable, product identity, purity and sterility are unverifiable.
05Reported harms
No regulated frequency table exists. Trial-era reporting did not identify a distinctive safety signal, but that is a limited statement drawn from limited trials, and it is not equivalent to an approved safety profile.
Unregulated supply risks apply in full: unknown identity and concentration, non-sterile handling, no accountability and no recall route.
06Sources
Links go to the primary source. Where a source is behind a paywall or requires registration, the citation is given so you can find it yourself.
- Prohibited List, AOD-9604 and hGH 176-191WADA
- Bulk drug substances review, AOD-9604FDA
- AOD-9604 clinical trials in obesityPubMed
- Unlicensed medicines guidanceMHRA
07Change history
Every substantive change to this record is logged here with its date. Corrections are made openly, not quietly.
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