CJC-1295 (no DAC) / Ipamorelin

This vial holds two separate peptides in equal measure. The first is CJC-1295 without DAC — a synthetic analog of the first 29 amino acids of growth-hormone-releasing hormone, also sold as Mod GRF (1-29). The DAC qualifier matters: the version with that group binds to albumin in blood and persists far longer, and the two are routinely sold under the same name by vendors who do not distinguish them. This is the version without it. The second is ipamorelin, a five-amino-acid peptide that acts on a different receptor entirely. Neither is a growth hormone; both act on the signalling upstream of it.

Growth hormone is not released steadily. It comes in pulses, mostly during sleep, and the size and timing of those pulses is set upstream in the hypothalamus and pituitary. Two signals govern it: growth-hormone-releasing hormone tells the pituitary to release, and somatostatin tells it to stop. A GHRH analog acts on the first of those. Ipamorelin acts on a different receptor — the one ghrelin binds — which influences the same pulse through a separate route. The reason these two are sold together is that they act on two distinct inputs to one system rather than on the same input twice. What that combination does has not been studied as a combination; each component's behaviour is described separately in its own literature. The pituitary's own regulation still sits between either peptide and any downstream effect, which is the specific and limited sense in which such peptides are described as acting 'upstream'. We have written a page on where that comparison holds and where it stops being useful.