Peptide Stack for Muscle Growth and Fat Loss: What's Proven

The table lists the combinations that have a stack calculator on this site, with the strongest human evidence found for each part and for the combination. "None found" means a PubMed search for the combination returned narrative reviews rather than a trial.

The recovery pairing has its own BPC-157 + TB-500 calculator; it is not a muscle-growth or fat-loss stack, and the evidence for it is thinner still.

The rationale is pharmacological: CJC-1295 is a growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) analogue and ipamorelin acts on the ghrelin receptor, so together they hit two pituitary signals at once. The human data are narrower than the claims.

• CJC-1295 (with DAC): Teichman et al. (JCEM 2006) gave single and repeated subcutaneous doses to healthy adults. GH rose 2- to 10-fold for six days or more and IGF-1 1.5- to 3-fold for 9 to 11 days, with an estimated half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days. It measured hormone levels, not muscle. The "no DAC" version sold for stacking is a different, short-acting molecule and was not what this study tested.
• Ipamorelin: Gobburu et al. (Pharm Res 1999) infused five dose levels in healthy men. Each produced a single GH pulse peaking at about 40 minutes, with a 2-hour half-life. Again, hormone levels only.
• Both together: human studies of GHRH plus a ghrelin-receptor agonist exist as intravenous stimulation tests, for example Paulo et al. (JCEM 2008) using GHRH with GHRP-2, where the GH response depended strongly on body mass index and sex-hormone status. That shows the pituitary responds; it does not show that a repeated stack adds muscle.

Per-compound details are on the CJC-1295 no DAC and ipamorelin dosage pages, and the combined vial is handled by the CJC-1295 no DAC + ipamorelin calculator and the CJC-1295 DAC + ipamorelin calculator.

No research peptide stack has a published fat-loss result in humans. The nearest approved fact is tesamorelin: the Egrifta WR label approves 1.28 mg once daily to reduce excess abdominal fat in adults with HIV-associated lipodystrophy, and states plainly that it "is not indicated for weight loss management as it has a weight neutral effect." Pairing it with ipamorelin, as the tesamorelin + ipamorelin calculator handles, has not been studied.

AOD-9604, the third leg of the AOD-9604 + CJC-1295 + ipamorelin blend, has safety trials but no published efficacy figure; the details are in the HGH fragment 176-191 guide. Medicines with proven weight-loss results are GLP-1 based prescriptions, compared in weight loss injections.

When two peptides are freeze-dried in one vial, every draw delivers both in a fixed ratio. You cannot change one without changing the other. For each component, the maths is the same as a single peptide: units = that component's mg ÷ (its mg in the vial ÷ mL of water) × 100.

Example only: a vial labelled tesamorelin 5 mg + ipamorelin 5 mg, mixed with 2 mL of water, holds 2.5 mg/mL of each. The table shows what common syringe readings contain. It is arithmetic, not a suggested dose.

Check the label split before using any blend calculator, since the same total milligrams can be divided differently between products. For other concentrations use the mg to mL to units converter.

Apart from tesamorelin, none of the stack components is FDA approved. The FDA's list of bulk substances that may present significant safety risks in compounding (current as of April 2026) keeps ipamorelin acetate in category 2 for outsourcing facilities. CJC-1295, AOD-9604, BPC-157 and TB-500 appear in its "nominated but withdrawn" table, with the agency's concerns recorded: possible immunogenicity and impurity problems for all of them, "serious adverse events associated with CJC-1295 including increased heart rate and systemic vasodilatory reaction", and no identified human exposure data for TB-500. A 2026 Sports Medicine review by Mendias and Awan reached the same overall point: many of these peptides look favourable in animals, but rigorous human safety data are scarce. Stacking adds a second unverified vial to the first.

Calling a stack "best" would need head-to-head human data on an outcome that matters, such as lean mass, strength or fat mass, against placebo or another stack. None of the combinations above has that. What exists is hormone-level data for single compounds, one approved indication for tesamorelin that is explicitly not weight loss, and safety summaries. Anyone who claims a stack is proven for muscle growth or cutting is extrapolating from those.