TESAMORELIN 10mg - OLYMPIAN Labs NEW! (w/o water)

What Is Tesamorelin?

Tesamorelin is a synthetic growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) analog consisting of 44 amino acids with a trans-3-hexenoic acid modification at the tyrosine residue.

Sold under the brand name Egrifta, tesamorelin was approved by the FDA in 2010 specifically for reducing excess abdominal fat in HIV-positive patients with lipodystrophy. It’s not synthetic HGH — that’s a common misconception. Instead, it works upstream by telling your pituitary gland to do its job and release more growth hormone naturally. Big difference.

The reason this peptide became so popular outside its original indication is simple: it selectively targets visceral adipose tissue. That’s the deep belly fat wrapped around your organs that’s both cosmetically frustrating and metabolically dangerous. In the landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2007), tesamorelin reduced trunk fat by approximately 15% over 26 weeks compared to placebo. Most GH-related compounds on’t show that kind of targeted fat reduction in clinical settings.

I’d say about 70% of the people I talk to who are using tesamorelin are doing it for body composition — not because they’re HIV-positive. The anti-aging crowd has latched onto it too, thanks to its ability to boost IGF-1 levels without the side effect profile of exogenous HGH.

How Does Tesamorelin Work?

Most guides will tell you tesamorelin “stimulates the growth hormone.” That’s not wrong, but it undersells the mechanism.

Tesamorelin binds to GHRH receptors on somatotroph cells in the anterior pituitary gland. Once bound, it triggers a signaling cascade through the cAMP/protein kinase A pathway, which causes these cells to synthesize and release stored growth hormone into circulation. The key here is that your body’s natural feedback loops remain intact. When GH levels get high enough, somatostatin kicks in to pump the brakes. This pulsatile release pattern is what makes tesamorelin fundamentally different from injecting exogenous HGH, where you’re essentially bypassing that entire regulatory system.

The downstream effects are what people actually care about. Elevated GH stimulates hepatic IGF-1 production, which drives many of the anabolic and lipolytic effects — fat mobilization, protein synthesis, connective tissue repair. The pivotal Phase III trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Falutz et al., 2007) found that tesamorelin increased IGF-1 levels by approximately 81%  over baseline after 26 weeks, compared to a 5% decrease in the placebo group (p<0.001). That’s a meaningful, proportional rise without pushing levels into supraphysiological territory for most users.

There’s also emerging evidence that tesamorelin may have direct effects on hepatic fat. A study published in Hepatology (2019) found it reduced liver fat by about 37% in HIV patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Whether that translates to the general population is still being studied, but it’s promising data.

Tesamorelin Dosage By Goal

Fat Loss and Body Recomposition

This is why most people are here. For visceral fat reduction, the clinical evidence supports 2mg daily for a minimum of 12 weeks. The pivotal Phase III trials (Falutz et al., 2007 and 2010) used this exact protocol and showed a mean reduction in trunk fat of 15-18%. Results tend to plateau around the 26-week mark, which is why most protocols don’t extend much beyond that without a break.

If you’re stacking tesamorelin with a caloric deficit and consistent training, you’ll likely notice abdominal fat changes around weeks 6-8. I didn’t see dramatic visual changes until about week 10 on my first run, but bloodwork showed elevated IGF-1 by week 4.

Anti-Aging and General Wellness

The anti-aging crowd tends to run lower doses. 1mg per day is common here, and honestly, that’s probably sufficient if your primary goals are improved sleep quality, skin elasticity, and general recovery. You won’t get the same degree of visceral fat reduction, but your wallet won’t take as much of a hit either. Some clinics prescribe tesamorelin at this dose alongside other longevity-focused protocols.

Muscle Gain Support

Let me be blunt here — tesamorelin isn’t going to pack on slabs of muscle the way anabolics do. That’s not what it’s for. The GH elevation you get from 2mg daily is modest compared to running exogenous HGH at 4-6 IU. That said, the indirect benefits — better recovery, improved sleep, enhanced nutrient partitioning, reduced body fat — create a better environment for gains when you’re training hard. Think of it as a supporting compound, not a primary driver.

Most bodybuilders running tesamorelin for lean mass purposes stick to 2mg per day and stack it with something like ipamorelin to amplify the GH pulse. More on stacking below.

Liver Fat Reduction

This one’s underrated. The 2019 Hepatology study I mentioned earlier used 2mg daily for 12 months and saw a 37% reduction in hepatic fat fraction. If you’re someone who’s been on-cycle with orals and you’re concerned about liver health (and you should be if you’ve run ), tesamorelin is worth a serious look during your oral anabolic steroids off-cycle recovery period.

How to Use Tesamorelin

Tesamorelin comes as a lyophilized (freeze-dried) powder that you’ll need to reconstitute before injecting. If you’ve used any peptide before — BPC-157 , TB-500, whatever — the process is identical.

1. Reconstitute with bacteriostatic water (BAC water). For a 2mg vial, I typically add 1mL of BAC water. This gives you a clean 2mg/mL concentration, making dosing simple.
2. Swirl gently — never shake. Peptides are fragile. Shaking can denature the protein structure and tank your product’s potency.
3. Draw your dose using an insulin syringe. At 2mg/mL concentration, you’d draw the full 1mL (100 units on an insulin syringe) for a 2mg dose, or 0.5mL (50 units) for a 1mg dose.
4. Inject subcutaneously. Common sites are the lower abdomen (rotating injection spots), the fatty area around your love handles, or your thigh. Pinch the skin, insert at a 45-degree angle, inject slowly.
5. Store reconstituted tesamorelin in the refrigerator. Use within 20-28 days once mixed.

One quick note on timing — inject when your stomach has been empty for at least 2 hours. Eating within 30 minutes of your shot can significantly blunt the GH response. Most people do it right before bed or first thing in the morning. I prefer the bedtime protocol because GH naturally peaks during deep sleep anyway, so you’re amplifying what your body already wants to do.

Cycle Length and Protocol

So how long should you actually run this? The clinical trials ran 26 weeks (about 6 months), and that’s generally considered the sweet spot for maximum benefit. After 26 weeks, GH response can start to diminish slightly as your pituitary adjusts.

Here’s what I’d recommend based on experience and the available data:

There’s no hard evidence that you need to cycle off tesamorelin the way you’d cycle off, say, SARMS. It doesn’t cause pituitary suppression in the same way. But anecdotally, taking periodic breaks seems to maintain sensitivity to the compound. I usually do 16 weeks on, 4 weeks off, then reassess based on bloodwork.

One thing that’s different from exogenous HGH — you don’t need to taper. Just stop. Your body’s natural GH production should resume its baseline pattern within a few days to a couple weeks.