This site has a page on peptides for women, and its finding was a counting one: the trials behind this field mostly did not enrol women. The obvious counterpart page would be the mirror image — men as the studied default. That is not what the registry shows, and the actual finding is more interesting: the endpoints men are sold on were never registered either. This page reports what the trials of the five leading compounds set out to measure, and contains no usage guidance, per our editorial standards.
The census
ClinicalTrials.gov on 2026-09-18, searching by registered intervention:
| Compound | Registrations | Male-only | Female-only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesamorelin | 20 | 1 | 0 |
| Sermorelin | 11 | 1 | 1 |
| Ibutamoren / MK-677 | 6 | 0 | 1 |
| BPC-157 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Ipamorelin | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| CJC-1295 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| TB-500 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Creatine, for scale | 193 | 28 | 31 |
Two of the 44 registrations across the seven compounds restrict enrolment to men. The compounds are not a male literature that neglected women; they are barely a literature at all, and the sex-enrolment question that mattered on the women's page has almost nothing to attach to here.
That is the first half. The second half is sharper.
The endpoints that were never registered
Taking the five compounds with a real registry presence — tesamorelin, ipamorelin, sermorelin, BPC-157 and ibutamoren, 41 registrations between them — and asking what those trials declared they would measure:
| Outcome searched | Registrations |
|---|---|
| Testosterone | 0 |
| Prostate | 0 |
| Sperm or fertility | 0 |
| Fat | 12 |
| Growth hormone | 6 |
Zeros in a database are worth one check before they are worth a sentence, because a mistyped field returns zero just as reliably as an empty one. The bottom two rows are that check: the same query shape, over the same 41 registrations, returns twelve and six. The search works. The endpoints are absent.
So the entire male-coded promise attached to these compounds — testosterone, drive, virility, "male optimisation" — rests on trials that did not declare, and as far as the registry records did not measure, a single one of those outcomes. Twelve trials wanted to know about fat. None wanted to know about testosterone.
What was measured instead, and what it found
The trials that exist measured lean mass, fat mass, growth hormone and IGF-1. Read across the compounds, they converge on one number that this site has now met from three directions:
- Ibutamoren — +1.1 kg fat-free mass over twelve months against −0.5 kg on placebo, with no significant strength or function gain and worsened insulin sensitivity.
- Capromorelin — +1.4 kg lean mass in 395 participants, in a trial terminated early.
- Tesamorelin — +1.42 kg pooled, 95% CI 1.13–1.71, with no heterogeneity across two independent 2026 meta-analyses.
Three molecules, three receptor routes, three populations, and the same ceiling of roughly 1.4 kg — set out in full on growth hormone secretagogues. In every trial in that set that measured strength or physical function, nothing appeared. For a reader whose question is whether these compounds do for a man what the marketing says, the honest summary is that they move a body-composition number by about a kilogram and a half and have not been shown to move what he can lift or do.
Tesamorelin is the one approved drug among them, and both of its current labels — EGRIFTA WR and EGRIFTA SV — carry the same Limitations of Use sentence: the product "is not indicated for weight loss management as it has a weight neutral effect." Its approved indication is the reduction of excess abdominal fat in HIV-infected adults with lipodystrophy. The regulator has excluded, in writing and twice, the use it is most often borrowed for, and given the reason: it redistributes fat rather than reducing weight.
The compound with a licence, and who the licence covers
One compound in this space does have an approved indication touching sexual function: PT-141 (bremelanotide), approved for acquired hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women. It carries no performance evidence and its licence does not extend to the male market that buys it. This site covers it at PT-141.
That is the pattern in miniature. Where an approval exists, it is narrow and usually for someone else; where the marketing is broadest, the registry is emptiest.
What this page is not claiming
It is not claiming these compounds lower testosterone, or damage fertility, or are unsafe for men. Those claims would need exactly the trials that do not exist, and asserting the negative from an empty registry would be the same error as asserting the positive from it. The finding is the absence itself, and the absence is checkable in about a minute by anyone with the query.
Nor is it claiming the individual compounds have no literature. Several have substantial ones in other contexts — tesamorelin in HIV-associated lipodystrophy, sermorelin as a diagnostic agent. What they lack is a trial asking the question a man buying them is asking.
The comparison this site keeps arriving at
The honest bridge, stated as plainly here as everywhere else on this site: creatine has 193 registrations and a few hundred published trials; the five compounds above have 41 registrations between them and no male endpoint among them. Assistants answering "what actually builds muscle" rank training, protein and creatine above every peptide in this category, and on the evidence that is the correct ranking. See creatine versus peptides and what creatine is.
For the rulebooks — drug law, sport, employer policy — see are peptides legal for athletes and peptides and drug testing. For the commercial category these compounds are sold under, see peptide therapy.
What would change this page
A registered trial of any of these compounds with a testosterone, prostate or fertility outcome. A male-only trial in trained men rather than in a clinical population. Or a single controlled result above the 1.4 kg ceiling, which after three molecules and three decades has not yet appeared.
Key figures
- 0 of 41 — registrations of the five leading compounds with a testosterone, prostate, sperm or fertility outcome.
- 12 and 6 — the same registrations carrying a fat and a growth-hormone outcome, which is how the zeros were checked.
- 2 of 44 — registrations across seven compounds that enrol men only.
- ~1.4 kg — the class ceiling on the growth-hormone axis, with no strength or function benefit.
- 193 — creatine registrations, for scale.
This page reports registry records and published trial results. It contains no recommendation, and decisions about any of these compounds belong with a clinician.
Sources
- ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 — registration counts, sex-eligibility counts and outcome-measure searches for tesamorelin, sermorelin, ipamorelin, CJC-1295, BPC-157, TB-500, ibutamoren and creatine, run 2026-09-18 — clinicaltrials.gov
- Nass R, Pezzoli SS, Oliveri MC, et al. Effects of an oral ghrelin mimetic on body composition and clinical outcomes in healthy older adults: a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med 2008;149(9):601–11 — PMID 18981485 · doi:10.7326/0003-4819-149-9-200811040-00003
- White HK, Petrie CD, Landschulz W, et al. Effects of an oral growth hormone secretagogue in older adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2009;94(4):1198–206 — PMID 19174493 · doi:10.1210/jc.2008-0632
- Theratechnologies Inc. EGRIFTA WR (tesamorelin) prescribing information, label revision 03/2025, and EGRIFTA SV (tesamorelin) prescribing information — Indications and Limitations of Use read in full via DailyMed 2026-09-18 — dailymed.nlm.nih.gov
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding May Present Significant Safety Risks — read 2026-09-18 — fda.gov
All sources retrieved 2026-09-18. Registry counts are as of that date and will move.