Short-acting, truncated IGF-1 injected into the trained muscle; very potent at dropping blood sugar.
Safety tier
Avoid
strict bar
Positive
49%
of 4 reports
Per month
≈ €22–180
estimate
Rank
#37
of 61 research peptides
At a glance
Onset
Users inject it around the workout and describe the pump within the session.
Lasts
Users describe a half-life of about 30 minutes, so it acts briefly and is injected each training day.
Access
Grey market
Strict case
An IGF-1 receptor agonist about ten times as potent as IGF-1 in cells and the most hypoglycaemic of the IGF-1 variants in primates, with no human data, the same tumour-promotion concern as LR3, and grey-market vials that are rarely tested.
Best effects
Local pump and fullness in the injected muscle · claimed local growth ('site injection')
Downsides
Hypoglycaemia risk, described as worse than LR3 without carbs · painful intramuscular injections into many sites · extra soreness in the injected muscle · short-lived, so it has to be injected around every session
Typical use
No clinical dose exists. Community guides suggest roughly 25-100 mcg injected into the just-trained muscle, with fast carbs, for about 4 weeks.
Stacked with
Stacked with
PEG-MGF: Forum protocols pair it with PEG-MGF for injury recovery or local growth; DES is said to be compatible on the same day where LR3 is not. No data supports either claim. · Testosterone, SARMs and MK-677: The few positive reports all come from users on other anabolics at the same time.
Safety
Watch
IGF-1 receptor agonist that binding proteins do not restrain at all: theoretical promotion of existing or undiagnosed cancers, as with LR3, which accelerated tumour growth in mice · The most potent hypoglycaemic of the IGF-1 variants in pigs and marmosets; full-length IGF-1 causes hypoglycaemic seizures in humans · Organ growth: severalfold more potent than IGF-1 at enlarging the gut in rats · No human data; vendors rarely publish third-party tests and the peptide degrades easily
Tier by safety barStrict AvoidBalanced AvoidEvidence only Caution
Seen harm0 of 3
Mechanism3 of 3
Data gap3 of 3
Silent harm3 of 3
Product3 of 3
Never if
Active or past cancer, or a known predisposition to cancer · Pregnancy or breastfeeding (no human reproductive data) · Children and teenagers with open growth plates · Diabetes, insulin or sulfonylurea use, or a history of hypoglycaemia · Use without food or before driving
Why each score
Seen harm 0/3
No published case report, trial or regulator warning involves des(1-3)IGF-1, and the few first-hand Reddit reports describe no serious harm. The zero reflects almost no documented human exposure, not reassurance; the gap is carried by dataGap. r/moreplatesmoredates: PEG-MGF and IGF-DES first-hand thread ↗
No human has received des(1-3)IGF-1 in any published study, and the original developers noted it was never clinically evaluated. Full-length IGF-1 (mecasermin) trials do not transfer, because DES escapes binding proteins and is several times more potent per microgram. Ballard et al. 1996: des(1-3)IGF-I review (clinical opportunities not yet evaluated) ↗
Very few first-hand reports exist; most Reddit mentions are questions, vendor guides or comparisons with LR3. Its appeal is 'site injection': users inject it into the muscle they just trained, hoping for local growth, and some women ask about it for glutes after TikTok called it a 'BBL peptide'. The handful of users describe a muscle 'blowing up' or localised growth, usually on top of steroids or SARMs. Others felt nothing, and one overdosed calf brought on an odd full-body reaction mid-workout. One user warns it drops blood sugar harder than LR3, and another notes that DES vendors rarely post a third-party test. Felt nothing: Too few reports to judge: one first-time user felt no pump, only extra soreness in the injected bicep..
the bottles went quick as I had to inject into each muscle group and there are pairs of those muscle groups because I am a symetrical bi-ped. it seemed to blow up each muscle
PositiveRecovery · Injection · one vial
one vial each of IGF-1 DES and PEG-MGF during an LGD-4033 and MK-677 cycle on a testosterone base
I tried the First time 25mcg only left Bizeps and i didnt felt a pump or something. Just after one day my muscle on the left biceps was more hurting than after a normal training.
NothingRecovery · 25 mcg into one bicep
first dose, with 50 g dextrose before training; later suspected the 12.5 mm needle put it subQ rather than IM
Studies
Evidence
Animal only — No human study of des(1-3)IGF-1. It occurs naturally in small amounts (in colostrum, brain and uterus), was characterised in Adelaide in the late 1980s and 1990s, and was tested only in cells, rats, pigs and marmosets. Full-length IGF-1 (mecasermin) is the closest human comparison, and DES is several times more potent per microgram.
Caveat
There are almost no first-hand reports to judge it by, and no data at all on whether local injection gives local growth in people. Its short half-life is sometimes sold as making it safer than LR3, but its glucose-lowering potency per dose is higher.
The peptide's chain of amino acids from its start (the N-terminus) to its end, one bead and one letter for each: A alanine, C cysteine, D aspartic acid, E glutamic acid, F phenylalanine, G glycine, H histidine, I isoleucine, K lysine, L leucine, M methionine, N asparagine, P proline, Q glutamine, R arginine, S serine, T threonine, V valine, W tryptophan, Y tyrosine. A modification such as an N-acetyl cap or a C-terminal amide changes how long it lasts in the body. Length tells related peptides apart, from a two-residue dipeptide like carnosine to a 43-residue protein like thymosin beta-4, and predicts neither effect nor safety.
Report grades
Every first-hand Reddit or X report is graded on its own, from glowing through positive, mixed, nothing and negative to bad reaction, and the bar shows how those grades split. Posts that look vendor-adjacent stay on the peptide's page but are left out of the counts.
GlowingPositiveMixedNothingNegativeBad reaction
% positive
The share of a peptide's graded Reddit and X reports that are glowing or positive, vendor-adjacent posts left out. A peptide with few reports is pulled toward the average of all reports, as if it had eight average ones besides its own, so two glowing posts cannot top the list. Peptides rank by this figure, those with no graded report yet after those with one, and Avoid ones after every other entry.
Researcher estimate
No first-hand report of this peptide has been graded yet, so the figure is the researchers' own rating out of 10 from what they read about it. It ranks after every peptide with graded reports until its own arrive.
Safety tier
Each peptide is tiered Clean, Caution or Avoid from its five risk axes under the chosen safety bar. An Avoid peptide carries a real risk of harm, a plausible route to serious harm rather than mere unpleasantness, so it stays listed with the reason but ranks behind every other entry, however good its reviews.
Safety bar
The safety bar sets how much risk it takes to rate a peptide Avoid. Strict: out on any serious mechanism with little human data, or any documented serious harm. Balanced: out on documented serious harm (unless it is obvious, reversible and from a regulated product), or a serious mechanism whose harm would be silent with no human data at all. Evidence only: out only on documented serious harm in humans that is lasting, delayed or from grey-market product.
Seen harm
Documented serious adverse events in humans, from 0 for none despite real exposure to 3 for deaths or several well-documented serious harms. Serious means a hospital or emergency visit or harm lasting weeks, so a headache or a bad night does not count.
Mechanism
A plausible biological route to serious harm at the doses people use, such as growth-factor signalling, hormone-axis suppression, heart or blood-pressure effects or immune activation. It runs from 0 when none is known to 3 when a dangerous pathway has been shown in living animals.
Data gap
How little human safety data exists for the molecule actually sold, from 0 for an approved drug with large trials and years of use to 3 for no human safety data at all. A modified analogue does not inherit its parent's trials.
Silent harm
Whether the feared harm would show quickly or stay hidden, from 0 when it is obvious and goes on stopping to 3 when it is silent and delayed, like tumour promotion or slow organ damage. User reports cannot reveal a harm that takes years to appear, so a high score here limits what good reviews can tell you.
Product
The risk of what people actually buy, from 0 for a regulated pharmacy or supplement product taken by mouth or on the skin to 3 for a grey-market injectable. In one dataset of 6,441 grey-market samples, 42–71% failed basic quality criteria and 15% carried endotoxin; taken by mouth or in the nose, a pack avoids the injection risks.
Evidence
The strongest kind of study behind the peptide's effects, from an approved drug through human controlled trials and small human studies to animal work or nothing of its own. Animal results often fail to carry over to people.
Access
How people get it: as an approved drug, a compounded prescription, an over-the-counter supplement or from the grey market, where nobody checks the vial. The channel decides both the legal position and the risk of a bad batch.
Price per month
Thirty days of the typical dose, from its low end to its high end, priced at the listing a careful buyer would choose: in stock, from a shop scoring 4 of 5 on trust (third-party tested where no score is set), failing that 3, a pure pack before a blend, a European shop first, then the cheapest per mg. The range is the dose's, not the shops'. A per-dose amount counts once a day unless the dose says otherwise. Prices are in euros at ECB rates of 2026-10-29, before shipping; the shop table keeps each listing's price per mg, per gram for bulk supplements. Where no listing can be priced the researchers' own estimate stands in, and says so.
Dose users report
The middle half of the daily doses stated in at least five first-hand reports, vendor posts left out. Where its middle sits more than twice above or below the declared dose, the month is priced at it as well, since what people take is what they pay for.
Shop trust
Each shop's trust on a 1–5 scale, read from its testing and its reputation: 1 for serious red flags (fabricated COAs, scam reports, impersonation, a closed shop), 2 for no public testing, a new shop or active complaints such as seized parcels, 3 for its own COAs or a short track record, 4 for verified third-party testing or a strong reputation, and 5 for third-party batch reports that name the shop, with years of good independent reputation. A shop without a score counts third-party batch testing as 4, its own COAs as 3 and no public tests as 2.
Best value
Within a category or a goal, a peptide that no other beats on both counts: none is rated more positively for the same or a lower monthly price, and none costs less for the same or a higher rating. The chart joins these into the best-value line; the cheapest of them and the best-rated of them both make it, so the line spans the trade-off from cheap to best. Avoid entries never count, and a peptide needs both a % positive and a price to be compared.
Testing
Whether the shop publishes lab results: third-party tested means an independent lab checks each batch, own COA means the shop's own certificate of analysis, and no public tests means neither. A certificate shows purity, not safety.
Added peptide
Some packs sold under one peptide's name hold a second one, such as 5 mg GHK-Cu in a nasal kit, stated only in the description. Sprayed in the nose or injected it reaches the blood like an injection, so it carries the risk of that route and is tiered as the injectable form, whatever its tier on the skin. A pack whose page gives no contents list may hold more than its name.