CJC-1295 without DAC: what has been measured about safety

One agency statement covers this product and it is worth reading in full. FDA lists CJC-1295 among bulk drug substances for use in compounding that may present significant safety risks, stating that compounded drugs containing it may pose risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration and may have complexities regarding peptide-related impurities and characterisation of the active ingredient, that the agency has identified serious adverse events associated with CJC-1295 including increased heart rate and systemic vasodilatory reaction, and that available clinical data are limited [11].

That entry names CJC-1295 and does not distinguish between the two products sold under that name. This product is sold under it, and this page reports the entry as written rather than deciding on the agency's behalf which variant it covers.

Everything else on this page is about what has and has not been measured on this version specifically. A registry sweep found no registration under this name and a literature search found no human study of it [9] [14], so there is no adverse event record attributable to this product. What does exist is a class literature covering the axis, and a published analysis of what falsified peptide products on one national market actually contained.

What this page reports, and what it does not

We report what has been documented. We do not prescribe what should be done.

Every sentence below reports what a named source measured, stated or searched, in what system, and what it found. Where a figure belongs to the other product sold under this name, the page says so in the same sentence rather than in a footnote.

This page publishes no dose, no schedule, no route instruction and no list of people who should avoid anything. A list of who should not use a compound is a directions-for-use document, and it only makes sense if the reader is going to use the thing. What replaces it is a description of the compound and its record, written about the molecule rather than about the reader.

One distinction runs through everything here and is the reason this page exists separately. Two products share the CJC-1295 name and differ by a linker that bonds the peptide to albumin. Every published human measurement carrying that name was made on the version with the linker, and none of it is a measurement of this one.

What has been measured

The agency entry, and the name it attaches to

FDA's category 2 row for CJC-1295 states three things, and the middle one is the reason it is the strongest safety-adjacent sentence available about this product. Compounded drugs containing the substance may pose risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration and may have complexities regarding peptide-related impurities and characterisation of the active ingredient. The agency has identified serious adverse events associated with CJC-1295 including increased heart rate and systemic vasodilatory reaction. And available clinical data are limited [11].

For several other compounds this site covers, the agency's stated position is that it lacks information. Here the agency says it has identified serious adverse events and names two of them. That is a different kind of statement and it belongs on this page whole rather than summarised.

FDA does not publish the underlying reports on that page, so this site cannot say how many, how severe, or in what circumstances. Nor does the entry distinguish the two products sold under the name, which means a reader cannot use it to tell them apart. This page states the scope of the entry as the entry states it.

What has been measured in anyone taking this version

Nothing. A registry sweep run on 23 August 2026 across the compound name, three spellings of it, the modified GRF name, the drug affinity complex description and a sponsor query returned one record in total, and that record identifies its intervention only as CJC 1295 with no description, so it cannot be attributed to either version [9]. A PubMed search on the same date returns three human studies carrying the CJC-1295 name, and all three used the version with the albumin-binding linker [14].

So no registered or published study has followed anyone taking this version. There is no adverse event reporting attributable to it, no exposure duration, and no tolerability observation of any kind. Both searches are recorded with their terms and their dates so anyone can repeat them.

An absence of reported harm from studies that were never run is not a safety finding in either direction, and this site does not describe any compound as safe. What the absence does establish is that every figure a reader meets for this product came from somewhere else, and the next three sections are about where.

The class literature, and what a narrative review can carry

Three 2026 reviews cover compounds acting on the growth hormone axis as a class. The adverse effects they attribute to that class are endocrine and metabolic disturbances including prolactin and cortisol elevations, appetite changes and disordered blood sugar, fluid retention, muscle and joint pain, and injection-site reactions [4] [5] [6].

Those are class-level observations from narrative reviews rather than measurements of this compound. A narrative review gathers what a field reports; it does not pool data to a protocol, it does not weight by study quality, and it cannot say how often anything happens or in whom. One of the three assigns every compound in the class an evidence tier and places this one in the lowest, defined as having no peer-reviewed human studies and being supported only by preclinical extrapolation and grey-literature user narratives [4].

They are on this page because the class picture is the only picture that exists for this product, and a page that omitted it would leave a reader with nothing at all where something imperfect is available. [Anecdote] [4] [5] [6]

What a screen of falsified peptide products found

A published systematic screen took the ten most frequently encountered falsified polypeptide drugs on one national market, bought from three suspected illegal internet pharmacies, and profiled their impurities. It found wide variation in the amount per unit, purity between 5 and 75 per cent for the cysteine-containing peptides, and arsenic and lead, with multiple samples up to ten times the toxicity limit for injected drugs and all of the arsenic in its more toxic inorganic form [7].

Whether this compound was among the ten is not established here, and this page does not assert that it was. What the study establishes is a property of the channel rather than of any molecule: elemental contamination at those levels is not something a purity figure for a peptide would report at all, so a certificate showing a high percentage says nothing about it.

That matters more for this product than for most, because it is usually sold as a blend and because two products share its name. A reader relying on a document to know what is in a vial is relying on a document that this study shows can be true and uninformative at the same time. [In-vitro] [7]

The blend, and what people say they use it for

This compound is most often sold combined with a second compound rather than on its own, and no published study tested it in any blend. A result attributed to a combination cannot be assigned to either component, and here there is no result to assign in the first place.

What people say they want from it comes from a published study of bodybuilding forums rather than from vendor copy: weight loss, muscle enhancement, youthful skin, improved sleep and injury healing [3]. None of the five has been measured in any study of this compound, which is the efficacy half of this record and is covered on the main review.

It belongs on a safety page for a narrower reason. A netnography describes a real exposure happening outside any protocol, at amounts nobody published, in combinations nobody studied, and it is the only published account of that exposure existing at all. It is a description of practice, not a measurement of consequence. [Anecdote] [3]

What has not been characterised

Set out plainly, so the shape of the gap is visible rather than implied. Nothing is published on what a single large exposure to this version does, what repeated exposure does over weeks or months, whether it affects DNA, what it does in pregnancy or to offspring, or whether long-term exposure produces tumours. No registered study exists under this name and no published human study of it was located [9] [14].

Nothing is published on this version's pharmacokinetics either, and that gap is the origin of most of the misinformation about it. There is no measured half-life, no exposure figure and no clearance figure for this product. The figure usually quoted, 5.8 to 8.1 days, was measured on the version with the albumin-binding linker and is a consequence of that linker [1].

And nothing is published about the combination it is usually sold in. No study tested this compound with anything, so no interaction has been characterised, in either direction, with any other substance.

Our takeThe most consequential error made about this product is treating the other one's file as its own. FDA's entry names CJC-1295 and reports two serious adverse events under that name, which does reach this product because this product is sold under it. Everything else a reader will be shown, the half-life, the growth hormone multiples, the pulse-pattern argument, was measured on the version with the linker. Nothing has followed anyone taking this version, and there is no way to derive what would have been found if anyone had.

Talk to a licensed clinician about anything concerning your health.

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Teichman SL, Neale A, Lawrence B, Gagnon C, Castaigne JP, Frohman LA. Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 16352683 DOI 10.1210/jc.2005-1536
2. Ionescu M, Frohman LA. Pulsatile secretion of growth hormone (GH) persists during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295, a long-acting GH-releasing hormone analog. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 17018654 DOI 10.1210/jc.2006-1702
3. Van Hout MC, Hearne E. Netnography of Female Use of the Synthetic Growth Hormone CJC-1295: Pulses and Potions. Subst Use Misuse. 2016. PMID 26771670 DOI 10.3109/10826084.2015.1082595
4. Dominikowski A, Rękoś Z, Olejarz M, Szczepanek-Parulska E, Domin R, RuchaŁa M. The emerging landscape of performance-enhancing peptides modulating GH-IGF1 axis: bridging the gap between clinical evidence and patient self-administration. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2026. PMID 42395176 DOI 10.3389/fendo.2026.1822475
5. Mendias CL, Awan TM. Safety and Efficacy of Approved and Unapproved Peptide Therapies for Musculoskeletal Injuries and Athletic Performance. Sports Med. 2026. PMID 41966639 DOI 10.1007/s40279-026-02437-0
6. Villegas Meza AD, Nocek M, Mitchell BC, Lizarraga M, DeFoor MT, Ruzbarsky JJ, Huard J, Philippon MJ. Injectable Peptides in Sports Medicine: A Structured Narrative Review of Evidence, Safety, and Antidoping Implications. JBJS Rev. 2026. PMID 42160466 DOI 10.2106/JBJS.RVW.26.00027
7. Janvier S, Cheyns K, Canfyn M, Goscinny S, De Spiegeleer B, Vanhee C, Deconinck E. Impurity profiling of the most frequently encountered falsified polypeptide drugs on the Belgian market. Talanta. 2018. PMID 30029448 DOI 10.1016/j.talanta.2018.06.023
8. Knoop A, Thomas A, Fichant E, Delahaut P, Schänzer W, Thevis M. Qualitative identification of growth hormone-releasing hormones in human plasma by means of immunoaffinity purification and LC-HRMS/MS. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2016. PMID 26879649 DOI 10.1007/s00216-016-9377-3
9. ClinicalTrials.gov. Registry sweep for CJC-1295, CJC 1295, CJC1295, modified GRF 1-29, drug affinity complex GHRH, tetrasubstituted GHRH analog and ConjuChem GHRH, plus a sponsor query for ConjuChem, run through the v2 API on 23 August 2026. Exactly one record names the compound in its interventions, NCT00267527, and that record identifies its intervention only as CJC 1295 with no description. No registration exists under the modified GRF name or under any name identifying the version without the albumin-binding linker. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2026. ClinicalTrials.gov
10. ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT00267527, study ID GH100-013: a multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind phase 2 study of CJC 1295 administered for 12 weeks in HIV infected patients with HIV associated visceral obesity, sponsored by ConjuChem, listed enrolment 120. Recorded as TERMINATED with the whyStopped field EMPTY, no results posted, no primary outcome measures listed, and no update since 12 October 2006. Read through the v2 API on 23 August 2026. ClinicalTrials.gov. 2026. NCT00267527
11. US Food and Drug Administration. Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding that May Present Significant Safety Risks. The category 2 table carries the row CJC-1295, reading in full: compounded drugs containing CJC-1295 may pose risk for immunogenicity for certain routes of administration and may have complexities with regard to for peptide-related impurities and API characterization; FDA has identified serious adverse events associated with CJC-1295 including increased heart rate and systemic vasodilatory reaction; available clinical data are limited. The entry names the compound and does not distinguish the two products sold under that name. Page content current as of 22 April 2026, fetched with a browser user agent and read on 23 August 2026. FDA human drug compounding. 2026. FDA category 2 list
12. World Anti-Doping Agency. The 2026 Prohibited List, international standard, effective 1 January 2026. Section S2.2.4 names CJC-1295 on the list's own face, alongside ipamorelin, ibutamoren, examorelin, GHRP-2, GHRP-6, sermorelin and tesamorelin. S2 substances are prohibited at all times. Retrieved by hand and read back on 9 August 2026; the URL serves zero bytes to automation and is ledgered in tools/unverified-sources.json. World Anti-Doping Agency. 2026. WADA 2026 Prohibited List
13. US Food and Drug Administration. Drugs@FDA approved drug products, queried through the openFDA drugsfda endpoint on 23 August 2026 for CJC-1295 and CJC 1295 across the generic name and brand name fields. Both queries returned NOT_FOUND: there is no approved US application under either spelling. openFDA. 2026. openFDA drugsfda
14. US National Library of Medicine. PubMed, searched for CJC-1295 and CJC 1295 on 23 August 2026. Both searches return the same set. Three published human studies carry the name, PMID 16352683, PMID 17018654 and PMID 19386527, and all three used the version with the albumin-binding linker. No published human study of the version without that linker was located under any of its names. PubMed. 2026. Source document