RESEARCH DIGEST · REGULATORY STATUS
Sermorelin is a GHRH(1-29) secretagogue with a former approval and a present compounding status.
A status-and-access digest of the GHRH(1-29) record: what the trials measured, how the approval history actually reads, and where compounded availability stands today — every claim dated and sourced.
The short version
Sermorelin is a lab-made copy of the first 29 building blocks of a natural brain hormone called GHRH (growth hormone-releasing hormone — the signal the brain uses to tell the pituitary gland to make growth hormone). It does not contain growth hormone itself. Instead, it nudges the pituitary (a small gland at the base of the brain) to release the body's own growth hormone in its normal rhythm, which keeps the body's natural feedback brakes in place.
Doctors once used it as an approved medicine to help short children with a growth-hormone shortage grow [1]. That branded product was pulled from the US market in 2008 for business reasons — not safety problems — and sermorelin is now made one prescription at a time by compounding pharmacies [5][9]. Today it is marketed for adult "anti-aging" and body-composition goals, but the evidence for those uses is thin, and a major medical journal called that use "not yet ready for prime time" [5]. It is also banned in sport [11]. What people report — including the downsides — is on the effects page.
What the sermorelin record actually establishes
Sermorelin (also written GHRH(1-29) or GRF(1-29)) is the amidated, 29-amino-acid amino-terminal fragment of the body's 44-residue growth hormone-releasing hormone — and the shortest fragment that keeps full activity at the GHRH receptor [6]. It binds GHRH receptors (a switch on the surface of the pituitary's growth-hormone-making cells) and turns on the cAMP/PKA pathway (a common internal cell-signaling relay), prompting the gland to make and release growth hormone (GH) in its natural pulses [6].
Because it acts one step upstream — on the gland rather than by injecting GH directly — the body's own brakes through somatostatin and IGF-1 stay intact. In a multicenter trial of prepubertal growth-hormone-deficient children, once-daily subcutaneous sermorelin raised first-year height velocity from about 4.1 cm/year to roughly 7-8 cm/year, without excessive IGF-1 generation [1]. In healthy older men, 0.5 mg and 1 mg twice daily for 14 days produced dose-related rises in 24-hour GH and IGF-1; at the high dose those measures no longer differed from young men, with no change in fasting glucose [2].
The status, in one line
Sermorelin was once an FDA-approved branded product (the former branded product, NDA on file) for pediatric growth-hormone deficiency, withdrawn from the US market in 2008 for commercial — not safety or efficacy — reasons [5][9]. It now exists as a Category 1 bulk drug substance under FDA's interim Section 503A compounding policy, with the agency's final guidance issued in January 2025 [9]. That standing is distinct from GH-axis peptides reviewed by the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee in October 2024 (such as ipamorelin and kisspeptin-10) — the two should not be conflated. In sport, sermorelin and other GHRH analogs are prohibited by WADA under the S2 hormone-and-metabolic-modulator class [11]. The full dated record is on the legal status page.
Where the evidence is strong and where it is thin
The strongest data sit in two places: pediatric GH-deficiency efficacy [1] and the reversal of age-related GH/IGF-1 decline in short controlled studies of older men [2]. The pharmacokinetics are also well characterized — intravenous GHRH(1-29) elicits GH release at doses as low as 0.25 mcg/kg, keeps GH elevated for about 3 hours despite rapid clearance, and shows only ~3-5% bioavailability by the intranasal route [3].
What is thin is exactly what the marketing leans on. Rigorous long-term efficacy and safety data for adult anti-aging and body-composition use are limited, and an Annals of Internal Medicine editorial judged GH-secretagogue use for aging "not yet ready for prime time" [5]. This site reads that record straight: the established findings are flagged as established, and the gaps are marked as gaps rather than filled. The sermorelin research page lays out every study, and the sermorelin references page lists every source.