Posts tagged "AOD-9604"

Fat Loss: Lipolysis

How a fragment of growth hormone is rewriting the rules of targeted fat loss — and why the FDA just pulled the plug.

AOD 9604 isolates the fat-burning signal of growth hormone while leaving the growth-promoting pathways untouched. Five surprising truths about the peptide the FDA reclassified overnight.

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Fat LossOutcome

Appetite Suppression

GLP-1 agonists became a cultural phenomenon because they deliver dramatic short-term weight loss. The honest framing is chronic-disease pharmacology — effective while taken, compensation when withdrawn, best used alongside the nutritional foundation the drug amplifies.

Peptide-based appetite suppression splits across four classes — incretin agonists (semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide), amylin analogs (cagrilintide), hypothalamic peptides (BRP), and growth-hormone fragments (AOD-9604). The multi-pathway arms race is producing larger weight losses, the weight-regain-on-discontinuation pattern is producing harder questions, and the nutritional foundation is producing the difference between therapeutic weight loss and iatrogenic frailty.

appetite suppression

PeptidesPeptide

AOD-9604 (hGH Fragment 176-191)

A 16-amino-acid fragment of human growth hormone engineered to trigger fat metabolism without activating the GH receptor, AOD-9604 cleared early clinical trials for obesity before its pivotal Phase IIb collapsed under a placebo response. Now stripped of FDA Category 2 status and banned by WADA, its most interesting data may be in a direction nobody expected: cartilage repair.

AOD-9604 is a synthetic peptide fragment corresponding to amino acids 176-191 of human growth hormone, with an added N-terminal tyrosine. It selectively activates beta-3 adrenergic receptors to stimulate lipolysis without engaging the GH receptor, producing no measurable effect on IGF-1 or glucose. Its Phase IIb obesity trial (OPTIONS, 536 participants) was terminated in 2007 when placebo outperformed expectations. Preclinical cartilage regeneration data has since repositioned the compound toward joint repair, but no human joint trial exists.

AOD-9604

AOD-9604

Protocols

Fat Loss: Lipolysis

Appetite Suppression

AOD-9604 (hGH Fragment 176-191)

Protocols

Fat Loss: Lipolysis

Appetite Suppression

AOD-9604 (hGH Fragment 176-191)