HGH (Somatropin)

What it is

HGH is the actual hormone, not a peptide that asks your body to make it, and at 1 to 2 IU a day it does what the secretagogues promise: steadier sleep, faster recovery, better skin, and over months a leaner build. It is well tolerated at those doses. The things to respect are blood sugar, fluid, and one hard line: not with cancer, now or in the past.

The typical user is over 40, often on TRT, who has noticed recovery and sleep sliding and whose own GH output is down (you lose roughly 15 percent of natural production every decade). Women use it at 0.5 to 1 IU for skin, sleep and body composition. People with a diagnosed deficiency use it under a doctor as an approved medicine. It is not the tool for a 25-year-old who sleeps fine and trains hard; a secretagogue will do what they need at a fraction of the risk and cost.

Sleep deepens within the first week or two. By weeks three to four, soreness clears faster and skin looks better hydrated. The body-composition change is slow and real: expect a visible lean-out and fuller muscles at three to six months, not six weeks. Fat loss is strongest around the middle. It will not build muscle on its own at 2 IU; it shifts the ratio and improves recovery, and training does the building. Early on, puffier hands and ankles are common and settle; if they do not, the dose is too high.

Women 0.5 to 1 IU, men 2 IU, 4 IU the top of what we would call a reasonably safe range, all subQ. Take it in the morning fasted; HGH is short-acting, so anything above 2 IU gets split into morning and afternoon. Most people avoid dosing right before bed because it overlaps your biggest natural pulse, though some do it for sleep and are happy. A 36 IU vial at 2 IU is 18 days. Reconstitute gently (never shake) and keep it cold. The common mistakes are starting at 4 IU and getting carpal-tunnel tingling in week two, and running it for years without ever checking glucose. There is no set cycle: HGH does not stop working, which is why it is prescribed long term. The breaks people take are about blood sugar, insulin resistance, water retention or cost, not tolerance, so pause if your glucose climbs or the swelling will not settle.

This is an FDA-approved drug (somatropin, sold as Genotropin, Norditropin, Humatrope, Omnitrope and others) with decades of human data, so the body-composition and IGF-1 effects are not in question. What is thinner is the evidence for anti-aging use in healthy adults: composition shifts, but the quality-of-life and longevity claims are weaker and side effects climb with dose. Legally in the US it is prescription-only, and federal law specifically bars distributing it for anti-aging, bodybuilding or sport even with a script, which is why sourcing is the hard part. That is a fact to know, not the reason to decide.

If your main want is sleep and recovery and you are under 40, CJC-1295 + ipamorelin is cheaper, safer and enough. If visceral fat is the target and you can afford it, tesamorelin has the trial data, though low-dose HGH is often cheaper per month. If you have cancer now or have had it, this is a no. If you are prediabetic, it is a maybe with a glucose meter, not a casual yes.

What people use it for

Safety, in brief

The full picture — stop signs and who should talk to a doctor first — is on the dosing guide.

Sources

The labels and studies behind this page. Each link opens the original on PubMed, DailyMed or ClinicalTrials.gov.

1. Genotropin (somatropin) prescribing informationDailyMed: Genotropin (somatropin) · Label
2. Effects of low dose versus high dose human growth hormone on body composition and lipids in adults with GH deficiency: a meta-analysis of placebo-controlled randomized trialsNewman et al., Pituitary 2015 · Review
3. Effects of human growth hormone in men over 60 years oldRudman et al., N Engl J Med 1990 · Trial
4. Systematic review: the safety and efficacy of growth hormone in the healthy elderlyLiu et al., Ann Intern Med 2007 · Review