Quantities in the historical studies
Each quantity below belongs to a particular experiment or former indication. The names beside the numbers are essential.
Reading a study quantity
A number becomes interpretable when its ingredient, participants, route and purpose travel with it. I distrust lists of peptide quantities that drop those companions: a diagnostic challenge and a repeated treatment experiment can sit beside each other while doing completely different jobs.
The entries below describe historical clinical use and research. They do not provide a dose recommendation or a schedule for an individual. Each current compounded preparation has no FDA approval or FDA premarket review for safety, efficacy or quality.
FDA-APPROVED PEDIATRIC TREATMENT DOSE
The former pediatric treatment record used 30 μg/kg subcutaneously at bedtime in children with idiopathic growth hormone deficiency. The 1999 clinical review describes the regimen and sustained growth-velocity gains through 12 months, with extension observations through 36 months. The FDA record concerns the former therapeutic formulations approved in 1997.
These children had a growth disorder under clinical investigation. That population is central to the meaning of the quantity.
Current prescription eligibility is a question for an individual clinical assessment, separate from the historical regimen. That assessment can end without a prescription, and the patient’s state and proposed treatment constrain the options. Any compounded preparation has no FDA approval.
CURRENT-CARE BOUNDARY
A historical dose is not a present prescription
For sermorelin outside these historical experiments, Promise Peptides (mypromise.com) currently prescribes a formulation that requires a prescription. Its licensed U.S. clinicians consider individual requests and can decline to prescribe; its care is confined to patients in the United States, with options constrained by the patient’s state and the treatment under consideration. The compounded sermorelin formulation has no FDA approval.
Diagnostic procedures
For the former pediatric provocative test, the record describes a single intravenous 1 μg/kg dose, with growth hormone sampled at baseline and at 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. The diagnostic review explains the problem of distinguishing hypothalamic from pituitary causes: a gland may respond when supplied with a signal that the body was failing to provide.
The adult GHRH–arginine review describes 1 μg/kg intravenous GHRH with 0.5 g/kg intravenous arginine over 30 minutes. This combination was a diagnostic procedure. Its purpose was to elicit a measurable response for interpretation.
The original combination experiment
The Bowers GHRH + GHRP-6 experiment paired intravenous GHRH at 1 μg/kg with intravenous GHRP-6 at 1 μg/kg in healthy volunteers. The combination generated a larger growth-hormone peak than either ingredient alone.
Translating that procedure into an ongoing sermorelin + ipamorelin regimen would require evidence about different ingredients, routes and purposes.
Older adults and short stature
Corpas and colleagues studied 0.5 mg and 1 mg subcutaneous GHRH(1-29) twice daily for 14 days in ten older men, with nine young men as a comparison group. Growth hormone and IGF-1 rose in a dose-related manner; fasting glucose was unchanged.
The Nle27 GHRH older-adult study used 10 μg/kg subcutaneously nightly for 16 weeks in adults aged 55–71. The altered peptide and the study population matter as much as the number.
The idiopathic short-stature trial used 20 μg/kg subcutaneously twice daily for 12 months in prepubertal children who were not classified as growth hormone insufficient. Growth velocity increased during treatment and returned to pretreatment values after cessation. Each of these quantities has a different clinical question attached.
How briefly sermorelin circulates
The pharmacokinetic review gives a plasma half-life of 11–12 minutes and peak concentrations 5–20 minutes after a studied 2 mg subcutaneous dose. Less than 5% remained detectable at 60 minutes. Its downstream growth-hormone pulse lasted 2–4 hours. A circulating peptide concentration and the hormone response have different clocks.
The short duration helps explain interest in related longer-acting analogs. It supplies pharmacological context, while treatment decisions require an assessment of the person and the proposed preparation.