CJC-1295 vs IGF-1 LR3

Both get talked about for the same reasons, recovery, holding on to muscle and the changes that come with age, and both end up pointing at the same hormone. IGF-1, short for insulin-like growth factor 1, is the signal your liver and tissues make when growth hormone rises. The difference is how each one gets IGF-1 into the picture, and it's a bit like the difference between asking the bakery to bake more bread and having a loaf delivered.

CJC-1295 is the bakery request. It's a lab-made copy of the signal that tells your pituitary gland, the small gland at the base of your brain, to release growth hormone, so your body makes its own IGF-1. In the first human study of the version with DAC, an add-on that lets it last about a week, one injection kept IGF-1 raised for 9 to 11 days. IGF-1 LR3 is the delivery. It's a changed copy of IGF-1 itself, built so the proteins that normally hold IGF-1 in check barely grip it, which leaves more of it free to act.

That's why the two don't land in the same place on the evidence. CJC-1295 has been given to people in small studies of healthy adults, and those studies measured hormones in the blood, not how anyone looked or felt. IGF-1 LR3 was built as a research tool, and the studies in living bodies are in rats, pigs and cattle, with a result in pigs where the animals' own IGF-1 went down. Our guide to growth hormone vs growth hormone peptides shows where each piece sits on the line from brain to liver.

If you're choosing for a goal, our hormonal and menopause health page lists the other compounds people weigh, and for sleep specifically, our sleep and stress page covers where CJC-1295 turns up.

CJC-1295 dosage chart by version dosage guide → · IGF-1 LR3 dosage guide →

Where these come from: the CJC-1295 amounts and course are vendor education pages, and the per-kg figures are published human studies of the DAC version, which found 30 and 60 mcg per kg of body weight particularly well tolerated, about 2 mg and 4 mg for a 150 pound adult. The IGF-1 LR3 amounts are vendor and information pages, some of which say outright that their ranges are first-person online posts, and no human study sets any of them. The units to draw and how long a vial lasts are on the CJC-1295 dosage page and the IGF-1 LR3 dosage page.

Watch the units and the vials. The CJC-1295 amount is in milligrams and the IGF-1 LR3 amount is in micrograms, so a week of IGF-1 LR3 at the common range is 140 to 280 mcg against 2,000 mcg of CJC-1295 with DAC, and IGF-1 LR3 usually comes in a 1 mg vial against the 2 mg or 5 mg vials sold for CJC-1295. A mixed vial of either keeps 28 days in the fridge.

People search for the two together, and the pairing they describe is a small daily amount of IGF-1 LR3 with CJC-1295 without DAC, usually along with ipamorelin. The one dosed version we found, on a single information page, puts IGF-1 LR3 at 40 mcg after exercise, CJC-1295 without DAC at 100 mcg two or three times a week, which is less often than the nightly amount in the table above, and ipamorelin at 200 mcg twice a day. Nothing in the studies or on a label sets that, and the page cites no trial of the combination.

The DAC version is a different story. It stays active for about a week, so you can't separate it in time from anything else you take, and the pairing pages leave it out. Each keeps its own course, and the IGF-1 LR3 course is the shorter one. In the pig study the animals' own IGF-1 fell when they were given IGF-1 LR3, and nobody has tested what that means with a peptide prompting the pituitary on top. The pairing pages also say that IGF-1 LR3 is the one to be careful with around blood sugar, and not to combine it with insulin or medication for diabetes.

1. Alpha Labs5 mg · $31.49 $6.30/mg
2. Oros Research5 mg · $31.99 $6.40/mg
3. Profound Aminos5 mg · $37.00 $7.40/mg
4. Protide Health10 mg · $75.00 $7.50/mg
5. Flawless Compounds5 mg · $37.95 $7.59/mg

1. Flawless Compounds1 mg · $32.45 $32.45/mg
2. Glow Aminos1 mg · $32.45 $32.45/mg
3. Alpha Labs1 mg · $46.89 $46.89/mg
4. Evolve BioPep1 mg · $49.99 $49.99/mg
5. Profound Aminos1 mg · $51.00 $51.00/mg

Compare both in the app. The vial sizes differ, so compare the real price per milligram, and count the whole course, since 12 weeks of CJC-1295 with DAC at 2 mg a week is 24 mg while six weeks of IGF-1 LR3 at 40 mcg a day is 1.68 mg. For either one, look for a vendor that publishes independent purity and identity testing for the batch you're buying, and every vendor on PPL carries a confidence label, from High confidence to New vendor.

CJC-1295: the first human study reported no serious adverse reactions, and the longest ran 7 weeks, so nothing has measured a 12-week course. What people report most is puffy hands, feet or face from water retention, numb or tingling hands, sometimes with joint aches, and redness or lumps where they inject.

IGF-1 LR3: nobody has measured it in people, so there's no list of side effects to check against. Its name says insulin-like for a reason, and the pages describing it warn about low blood sugar, with shakiness, sweating and sudden hunger, so they say to inject with food. It's also a growth signal, which puts a history of cancer, pregnancy and breastfeeding well outside anything that's been tested.

Nobody has measured the risks of raising IGF-1 for a long stretch by either route, and a research vial isn't a regulated product, so the everyday risk is what's actually in it. A mixed vial that turns cloudy goes in the trash.

Both are sold for research. CJC-1295 has been tried in small studies and IGF-1 LR3 only in animals, and neither has an approved product to read a label from. You knew that, it's why you're reading this and not the label.