Evidence Audit·Tier B — negative result

The trial that quietly failed

AOD-9604 is still marketed hard for fat loss. It's one of the only peptides in this category that actually went through human obesity trials. What usually goes unmentioned is how those trials ended.

What it is

AOD-9604 is a fragment of human growth hormone — residues 176–191, the region originally linked to GH's fat-metabolizing effects without its growth-promoting effects.

The mechanism

The theory: isolate the lipolytic fragment of HGH, get the fat-mobilizing action without the growth-hormone side effects. Plausible enough on paper that it made it all the way to human trials — which is itself unusual in this category.

What the trials found

Tier B Human trials exist, specifically testing AOD-9604 for obesity. They largely failed to show a statistically significant weight loss difference versus placebo.

The limitation nobody mentions: negative human data isn't the same as no data. A compound can have a real, well-run trial behind it and still not do the thing it's sold for. That's a stronger signal than a rodent study either way — it's just not the signal being advertised.

The framework

"Went to human trials" is not automatically a selling point. Ask what the trial measured, against what comparator, and what it actually found — not just that it happened. This is what an evidence audit is for: not dismissing a compound because it's preclinical, and not crediting one because a trial exists. Reading what the trial actually showed.

Have a question about a specific compound?

Ask us