CJC-1295 and ipamorelin: dosage, side effects and what the research shows

The phrase describes a pairing rather than a single drug. CJC-1295 is a lab-made version of the first 29 amino acids of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), with four substitutions that slow its breakdown. The original molecule, built by ConjuChem in Montreal, also carries a maleimide group that locks onto albumin in the blood; that addition is called DAC (Drug Affinity Complex), and it stretches the peptide’s life from minutes to days ^[3]. Ipamorelin is a much smaller molecule, five amino acids long, that Novo Nordisk developed as a selective ghrelin mimetic in the 1990s ^[4].

Sellers list the pair in several ways: CJC-1295 ipamorelin, ipamorelin CJC-1295, CJC ipamorelin, or as a single vial called a blend. Whatever the label, the contents are two peptides with separate evidence bases. Our CJC-1295 guide and ipamorelin guide cover each one in full; this page deals with what is known, and not known, about using them as a pair.

Growth hormone (GH) release from the pituitary is driven by two stimulating signals and held back by one brake. GHRH acts on the GHRH receptor. Ghrelin, a hormone made mainly in the stomach, acts on a second receptor, GHS-R1a. Somatostatin is the brake. CJC-1295 copies the first signal and ipamorelin copies the second, which is why the two are sold as partners.

The case for pairing comes from studies of older compounds. In 1990 Bowers and colleagues gave healthy men the hexapeptide GHRP-6 together with natural GHRH: at submaximal doses the combination released GH synergistically, meaning more than the two effects added together ^[7]. Later work confirmed the synergy with GHRP-2 and GHRH infused together in 47 men aged 18 to 74, and found it was not the same in everyone. The combined response was smaller in older men and in men with more visceral fat, and larger in those with higher IGF-1 ^[8].

Neither of those studies used CJC-1295 or ipamorelin. Applying the finding to this pair is a reasonable pharmacological guess, but it remains a guess until someone tests it.

The version of CJC-1295 inside a blend changes what the combination is. With DAC, a single injection kept GH raised for six days or more in healthy adults, with an estimated half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days ^[1]. It raised the baseline level of GH between pulses about 7.5-fold while the pulses themselves kept their normal timing and size ^[2]. Ipamorelin, by contrast, produced one short GH pulse that peaked at about 40 minutes and faded to negligible levels, with a terminal half-life of about two hours ^[5].

Paired with ipamorelin, the DAC form would therefore add a continuous background signal to short daily pulses. The no-DAC form, sold as Modified GRF (1-29) or Mod GRF 1-29, lacks the albumin-binding group and would be expected to act for minutes to hours, closer to ipamorelin’s own time course. That expectation is based on chemistry. We found no published human study that measured how long the no-DAC peptide lasts.

Almost all of the human data on CJC-1295 comes from the DAC molecule ^[1][2]. Most blends, as the next section shows, contain the no-DAC version, which has none. A buyer who reads the DAC trial results and then buys a no-DAC blend is reading evidence for a different molecule.

In the listings we track, premixed vials are named, for example, “CJC-1295 No DAC + Ipamorelin 5mg/5mg”, “CJC no DAC/Ipamorelin Blend 5+5mg”, “CJC NO DAC + Ipamorelin 10mg + 10mg” and “CJC 1295 No DAC/IPA Blend 10MG”. Every blend listing we reviewed that names the CJC-1295 form names the no-DAC version; we did not see a listing that combined CJC-1295 with DAC and ipamorelin in one vial. Some listings do not say which form they contain at all, such as “CJC + Ipamorelin Blend 10MG”.

The ratio is not standard. Most listings describe equal amounts of each peptide, but one we track is sold as “CJC-1295/IPA 10mg/5mg”, a two-to-one mix. Three-peptide products also exist, for instance a 12 mg vial listed as “HGH Frag Ipamorelin CJC no DAC Blend”. Search data shows people also look for CJC-1295, ipamorelin and GHRP-2 sold as one product. None of these ratios comes from a clinical study; they are manufacturing choices.

Blends are priced per vial rather than per peptide, so comparing them with single-peptide vials needs some arithmetic. Our price pages track CJC-1295 prices and ipamorelin prices separately, and our note on how peptide prices work explains per-milligram comparison.

CJC-1295 with DAC was tested in two randomised, placebo-controlled, ascending-dose trials in healthy adults aged 21 to 61, lasting 28 and 49 days, which measured GH, IGF-1 and drug levels ^[1]. A companion study measured overnight GH pulses in healthy men aged 20 to 40 before and a week after one injection ^[2]. A phase 2 trial in people with HIV-associated abdominal fat was halted in 2006 after a participant died, and no results were published ^[14].

Ipamorelin was given to healthy men in a five-level dose-escalation study of intravenous infusions ^[5] and then tested in a phase 2 trial of 117 adults recovering from bowel surgery, where it did not significantly shorten the time to tolerating solid food compared with placebo (median 25.3 versus 32.6 hours) ^[6].

A PubMed search for the two names together, run on 24 September 2026, returned review articles and anti-doping papers but no clinical study of the combination. One 2026 orthopaedic review states that CJC-1295 combined with ipamorelin improved maximum muscle tension in rodents with steroid-induced muscle loss ^[10]. The only paper we could find reporting that result is a 2001 study in which adult female rats received ipamorelin alone, 100 µg/kg three times daily for three months, alongside the steroid methylprednisolone ^[11]. CJC-1295 was not part of it. Claims about the pair’s effects therefore rest on extrapolation from each peptide’s separate data.

The benefits most often attributed to the pair are more muscle, less fat, better sleep, faster recovery and slower ageing. None of these has been measured in a human trial of CJC-1295, of ipamorelin, or of the two together. The measured effects in people are narrower: CJC-1295 with DAC raised GH and IGF-1 for days in healthy adults ^[1][2], and ipamorelin produced a short GH pulse ^[5].

Whether raising GH in this way leads to changes in body composition is a separate question. The only GHRH analogue with body composition trials is tesamorelin, which reduced CT-measured visceral fat by 15.2% over 26 weeks in people with HIV, compared with a 5.0% rise on placebo ^[21]. That result belongs to a different molecule, in a specific patient group, at a licensed dose, and cannot be transferred to an unlicensed blend.

A 2026 endocrinology review sorted GH-axis peptides into evidence tiers, from regulatory-grade randomised trials to no human studies at all, and highlighted how uncertain the claimed performance and body-recomposition benefits are for the unlicensed agents ^[9]. That is a fair summary of where this combination stands.

Timelines for hormone changes do exist, because they were measured. After one injection of CJC-1295 with DAC, IGF-1 rose 1.5- to threefold and stayed up for nine to eleven days, and with repeated doses it stayed above baseline for up to 28 days ^[1]. Ipamorelin’s GH response peaked within the first hour after an infusion and was over within a few hours ^[5]. Nobody has measured the timing for the no-DAC form or for the two taken together.

Timelines for visible results, the subject of most before-and-after posts, have not been measured for this pair at all. Photos and personal logs cannot separate the peptides from changes in training, diet, water retention, lighting or expectation. A 2026 sports-medicine review discussed the placebo effect as a driver of perceived peptide benefits and how social media amplifies it ^[22]. For a sense of scale, the one GHRH-analogue trial that measured fat loss reported its main result at 26 weeks ^[21].

There is no CJC-1295 ipamorelin dosage from a clinical trial, because the pair has not been tested. The published doses belong to each peptide separately, in different routes and settings.

For CJC-1295 with DAC, the phase 1 trials used single subcutaneous injections at four ascending doses, then two or three doses a week or a fortnight apart; the authors reported it was relatively well tolerated, particularly at 30 or 60 µg/kg ^[1]. The pulsatility study used one injection of 60 or 90 µg/kg ^[2]. These were weekly or single doses of a long-acting molecule, not daily ones.

For ipamorelin, healthy men received 15-minute intravenous infusions of 4.21 to 140.45 nmol/kg ^[5], and the surgical trial used 0.03 mg/kg intravenously twice daily for up to seven days ^[6]. No subcutaneous human dose of ipamorelin has been established in a published trial, and no human dose of any kind exists for the no-DAC form of CJC-1295.

The figures that circulate for a CJC-1295 ipamorelin dosage per day, a bodybuilding dosage or a dosage chart do not come from these studies. A 2026 review of GH-axis peptides contrasted clinical evidence with online self-administration protocols and found the two far apart ^[9]. The doses above are reported for information, not as a recommendation.

A premixed vial behaves differently from two separate vials in one respect: every volume drawn contains both peptides in the ratio fixed at manufacture. The arithmetic is done per peptide. A vial sold as 5 mg of each, dissolved in 2 mL of liquid, holds 2.5 mg of each peptide per millilitre. A vial sold as 10 mg of CJC-1295 and 5 mg of ipamorelin, dissolved in the same volume, holds 5 mg and 2.5 mg per millilitre, so the two amounts cannot be adjusted independently.

Our peptide calculator converts milligrams, millilitres and syringe units for a single peptide; for a blend, run it once for each component using that component’s share of the vial. Reconstitution liquids are covered in our guide to bacteriostatic water. The calculation only tells you what is in the liquid, and only if the label is accurate.

No study has recorded side effects of the combination. For each peptide on its own, the data are short term. The CJC-1295 phase 1 trials reported no serious adverse reactions over 28 and 49 days ^[1], but the phase 2 programme stopped after a participant died, and the cause was never published ^[14]. In the ipamorelin surgical trial, adverse events were reported by 87.5% of the ipamorelin group and 94.8% of the placebo group, in patients recovering from major bowel surgery ^[6].

Class effects are better described than peptide-specific ones. A 2026 review of GH-axis peptides lists prolactin and cortisol rises, appetite changes, blood-sugar disturbance, fluid retention, muscle and joint pain and injection-site reactions among the adverse effects reported with these agents ^[9]. Ghrelin-receptor agonists can raise appetite: GHRP-2 infusion increased food intake by about 36% in healthy men ^[20], though this has not been measured for ipamorelin in people. Ipamorelin’s reputation for not raising cortisol comes from pig studies ^[4].

Long-term side effects of the pair are unknown, because nobody has followed users for long. Two further risks come from the supply chain rather than the molecules. Danish customs seizures contained glycine-modified versions of ipamorelin and Mod GRF 1-29 ^[12], and a German-Norwegian analysis found glycine-extended ipamorelin in black-market products ^[13]. A label that says CJC-1295 and ipamorelin is not proof of what the vial holds.

People often weigh this pair against a single GHRH analogue. Sermorelin is the unmodified 1-29 fragment of GHRH that CJC-1295 was built from, and it was once a licensed medicine for children with GH deficiency. Tesamorelin is a stabilised full-length GHRH with phase 3 trials and a current US licence. Neither has been compared with CJC-1295 and ipamorelin in a trial. Our head-to-head pages cover the single-peptide comparisons: tesamorelin vs sermorelin, ipamorelin vs sermorelin and tesamorelin vs ipamorelin.

Swapping CJC-1295 for sermorelin keeps the same two-receptor idea with a GHRH analogue whose licensed history is documented, while swapping it for tesamorelin brings in the one GHRH analogue with outcome trials. None of these pairings has been tested as a pair.

Neither peptide is an approved medicine in the US, UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, so no CJC-1295 ipamorelin product is FDA approved. In the US, the FDA’s list of bulk substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding still included ipamorelin acetate as of April 2026, while CJC-1295 had moved to a section of substances whose nominations were withdrawn, which does not authorise its use ^[16]. Health Canada’s April 2026 advisory named both CJC-1295 and ipamorelin among seized unauthorised peptides and said research-use labelling does not make such products legal ^[17].

In Australia, the June 2026 Poisons Standard lists both in Schedule 4 with the Appendix D possession controls ^[19]. In New Zealand, Medsafe’s classification database lists both as prescription medicines ^[18]. Country-by-country detail is on our legal status overview and the US legal status page. For tested athletes, both are named on the WADA Prohibited List under S2 and are banned at all times ^[15].

Because two peptides share one vial, a certificate of analysis needs to show both identities and both amounts, not a single purity figure. Check that the reported molecular weight of the CJC-1295 component matches the form on the label, since the DAC and no-DAC versions differ substantially in size. Our guide on how to read a COA explains what to look for, and third-party tested suppliers publish independent results. Storage follows general practice for freeze-dried peptides; see how to store peptides.