Ipamorelin
Wellness
In plain English
Ipamorelin is a lab-made peptide that signals the pituitary to release growth hormone, working through a different pathway than sermorelin/CJC-1295 (which is why they are often combined). It was designed to be "selective," meaning it boosts growth hormone without strongly raising stress hormones like cortisol. It is used in wellness programs by injection and is not an FDA-approved drug; human clinical data are limited.
The science
Ipamorelin is a pentapeptide ghrelin/growth-hormone-secretagogue-receptor (GHS-R) agonist. In the defining preclinical work (Raun et al., 1998), it released GH with potency similar to GHRP-6 but, unlike earlier GHRPs, did not meaningfully raise ACTH or cortisol even at doses far above the GH-releasing dose—hence "the first selective GH secretagogue." Most evidence is preclinical; robust human clinical trials for body-composition or anti-aging endpoints are lacking, and it is not FDA-approved. It is frequently compounded with GHRH analogs (sermorelin, CJC-1295, tesamorelin) to combine complementary GH-release pathways.