CJC-1295 without DAC is not an approved medicine and has never been administered in a published human study. There is no researched dose to report. The figures below record what community and research sources describe; they are documentation, not a protocol for the reader.
The short answer
Every number attached to this compound comes from practice rather than pharmacology. The figure that circulates is roughly 100 mcg per administration, subcutaneously, one to three times daily, usually alongside a ghrelin-receptor agonist such as ipamorelin or GHRP-2, and timed to empty-stomach windows around sleep or training. What does not exist behind that figure is any published human pharmacokinetic study, dose-response curve, or IGF-1 time course. FDA's 2024 review could not identify studies establishing whether the substance is pharmacologically active at all, and stated that data from the long-acting DAC version "cannot be extrapolated to CJC-1295 without the DAC modification" (FDA briefing document, PCAC December 2024).
Commonly reported research protocols
Research and community sources most often describe approximately 100 mcg per administration — the figure sometimes framed as a "saturation dose" — given subcutaneously one to three times daily, frequently in the same syringe as a GHRP, and separated from food by a short interval on the reasoning that circulating fatty acids blunt GH release.
Some sources describe weight-based versions of the same figure (around 1–2 mcg/kg) and cycles of several weeks with breaks between them.
None of these numbers derives from a study of this compound. No regulator, guideline or controlled trial supports them.
Why there are no study doses to compare against
The compound's first appearance in the scientific literature was not a trial but a seizure: in 2009 Norwegian police and customs submitted an unidentified preparation to the national doping control laboratory, and mass spectrometry matched it to CJC-1295 without the DAC modification (Henninge et al., Drug Test Anal 2010). Development had gone the other way round — ConjuChem built the DAC version precisely because native GHRH(1-29) is destroyed within minutes by dipeptidyl peptidase-IV, and the four amino-acid substitutions in the backbone were intended to reduce that vulnerability, not to be marketed alone.
For reference, the parent molecule sermorelin — GHRH(1-29) without any substitutions — has a plasma half-life of about 10 to 20 minutes in humans (Esposito et al., Adv Drug Deliv Rev 2003). That is the order of magnitude the short-acting analogue is assumed to sit in, and it is why multiple daily injections are described rather than the weekly schedule used for the DAC version. "Assumed" is the operative word: no one has published a measured half-life for it.
The GHRH-plus-GHRP pairing, and what supports it
The one part of this dosing culture with genuine experimental backing is the idea of combining a GHRH analogue with a growth hormone releasing peptide. The two act at different receptors and their effects are synergistic rather than additive: in the original human work, submaximal doses of a GHRP given with GHRH stimulated GH release synergistically, implying the two act through independent systems (Bowers et al., J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1990). Later work quantified it: in healthy older adults, 24-hour subcutaneous infusion of GHRP-2 combined with GHRH drove more GH secretion than either agonist alone, and the acute synergy was about three-fold greater in young than in older volunteers and higher in women than men (Bowers et al., J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2004).
That is a real finding about a real drug combination. It is not a finding about modified GRF 1-29 plus ipamorelin at 100 mcg each, which has never been tested.
How it is administered
The product ships as a lyophilised powder requiring reconstitution with bacteriostatic water before subcutaneous injection. Two practical points dominate the error reports:
The delivered dose is set by reconstitution, not by the vial label. How much diluent is added determines concentration; the amount drawn is read in syringe units, which are routinely misread as micrograms.
The labelled contents may not be what is in the vial. FDA found the CJC-1295 substances poorly characterised, with inconsistent naming across suppliers and registries — the same label covering five chemically distinct substances with different durations of action.
Why oversight matters
Raising GH raises IGF-1, and the risks that follow are the ones printed on approved growth hormone labels: neoplasm risk, glucose intolerance, fluid retention, intracranial hypertension. A class review of growth hormone secretagogues found them generally well tolerated in short studies but flagged rising blood glucose from falling insulin sensitivity, and called for evaluation of cancer incidence and mortality with long-term use (Sigalos & Pastuszak, Sex Med Rev 2018).
Those are monitorable — fasting glucose, HbA1c, IGF-1 — by someone with access to bloodwork and a reason to look. In December 2024 the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted 13–0 against placing CJC-1295 free base on the 503A bulks list, citing lack of characterisation, lack of clinical safety data and lack of effectiveness data (PCAC final summary minutes, 4 December 2024).
See also side effects and the research and evidence overview.
Sport & Anti-Doping Warning
Shorter-acting CJC-1295 (without DAC) is often discussed together with other GH secretagogues in performance contexts. Anti-doping rules treat it as a prohibited peptide hormone in the same way as the DAC-modified form.
Use of CJC-1295 (with or without DAC) by tested athletes is considered a violation even when framed as 'recovery' or 'wellness' support.