CJC-1295 (DAC) common uses, half-life, side effects and more

CJC-1295 with DAC is a long-acting version of a peptide that tells the pituitary to release growth hormone. A chemical tail on one end latches permanently onto a protein in the blood. That stretches its life in the body from minutes to about a week. It has never been approved anywhere. Its only trial in actual patients was stopped in 2006 after a participant died. It is sold as a research chemical and is constantly confused with the short-acting version sold under the same name.

• Sustained growth hormone and IGF-1 for body composition and recovery (community use)
• Fewer injections than the short-acting version needs
• Sleep and general wellbeing
• Countering the age-related decline in growth hormone
• Historically tested for HIV-related abdominal fat

Once or twice weekly in community practice

Community practice is 1 to 2 mg injected under the skin once or twice a week. That figure comes from forum protocols catalogued in a review rather than from any trial. It sits below the lowest dose the trials found well tolerated. That was 30 mcg per kg and works out near 2.4 mg for an average adult. The trials also tested 60 mcg per kg and tested higher levels that were tolerated less well. What happened at those higher doses was never reported. Doses build up on a weekly schedule because a week is about one half-life. Twice-weekly dosing builds up more than anything ever tested.

The measured half-life is 5.8 to 8.1 days and comes from the only trial that looked. Growth hormone stays raised for at least six days after a single dose. IGF-1 stays raised for nine to eleven days. IGF-1 was still above baseline at 28 days after repeated doses. A weekly injection therefore lands on top of a dose that is still working.

• Injection-site reactions reported in most trial subjects
• Flushing and warmth after injection
• Headache and nausea
• Dizziness and low blood pressure
• Brief involuntary leg muscle contractions and loss of coordination reported in the dose trials
• Water retention and joint aches reported at low rates for the approved relative

CJC-1295 with DAC activates the growth hormone releasing hormone receptor on the pituitary. That makes the pituitary produce and release its own growth hormone. The growth hormone then raises IGF-1 from the liver. A maleimide group on its tail reacts with the single free sulfur atom on albumin and forms a permanent bond. The peptide then rides that albumin around the bloodstream for days. It is widely said that this floods the body with a flat signal and destroys the natural pulses. The one study that measured it found the opposite. Pulse frequency and size were unchanged and the floor between pulses rose about seven and a half times.

The entire human evidence base is two groups of healthy volunteers. The first was a pair of randomized placebo-controlled dose trials running 28 and 49 days. The second was eleven men studied before and one week after a single dose without a placebo group. A third paper is often counted as separate evidence though it is a re-analysis of blood from those same eleven men. No study has run longer than 49 days. The one trial in real patients was stopped early and its data were never published. The published safety record amounts to two sentences saying no serious reactions occurred.

• It is banned in sport at all times and is named on the prohibited list rather than caught by a general clause
• Its only trial in patients was stopped in 2006 after a participant died hours after an injection and the conclusion that the drug was not to blame came from the company rather than from any independent review
• Growth hormone and IGF-1 drive cell growth so it is not for anyone with a current or past cancer
• The signal never clears between weekly doses so IGF-1 can stay raised for weeks and nobody has studied what that does over months
• Regulators reviewing it have flagged raised heart rate and body-wide vasodilation among reported serious reactions
• Avoid it in pregnancy and breastfeeding since no data exist