GHRP-2

FDA's compounding safety review states that GHRP-2 may pose a risk for immunogenicity due to potential aggregation and peptide-related impurities, and notes it contains an unnatural amino acid that adds to characterization complexity. The agency is also aware of reports of serious adverse events in patients who received GHRP-2, including increased insulin requirement to maintain blood glucose, death in critically ill study subjects, infection and pancreatitis, though it states causality has not been established.^[2]

• FDA explicitly states causality between GHRP-2 and these adverse events, including death, has not been established; the population described appears to be critically ill patients, which differs from healthy research-market use.
• This regulatory summary does not quantify event frequency. FDA's own page links the GHRP-2 entry to one published study (Van den Berghe and colleagues, 1999, growth hormone-releasing peptide-2 with thyrotropin-releasing hormone in critically ill patients), but that study's abstract does not itself report death, infection or pancreatitis, so the specific data behind FDA's statement remains unlocated pending its full text.

In a small acute study of healthy lean men, GHRP-2 increased food intake and GH release compared with saline. This does not establish long-term anabolic or recovery benefits.^[1]

• The limited population and acute exposure do not establish safety of repeated injections or combinations.
• A separate FDA compounding-safety communication reports serious adverse events, including death in critically ill patients, infection and pancreatitis associated with GHRP-2 in other contexts; see peptide-ghrp-2-safety-1 for that regulatory finding, which this seven-subject appetite study does not address.

A small retrospective study of men already receiving testosterone found increased IGF-1 with combined sermorelin, GHRP-2 and GHRP-6. Seven of the 14 men were also taking an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen, and the paper reports that blocking estrogen action reduced the IGF-1 rise. Glucose and insulin tolerance were not measured, so this study cannot establish the metabolic harm or safety of any two secretagogues.^[3]

• Three peptides, testosterone and, in half the cohort, an aromatase inhibitor or tamoxifen were used together; no pair-specific or long-term safety conclusion.
• Glucose and insulin tolerance were explicitly not evaluated in this study.