Hexarelin Dosage: Common Protocol, Study Doses and Calculator
Hexarelin dosage: the 80-160 mcg common protocol, the 1990s pharmacology study doses by route, and a calculator for injection volume.
The short version
Hexarelin has no FDA label to dose from. Community and vendor dosing guides most often describe 80-160 mcg by subcutaneous injection, once or twice daily on an empty stomach, for a 4-8 week cycle with an equal-length break. That is common practice, not trial-established. The only human doses with a study behind them come from 1990s pharmacology research. Healthy adults got single doses (or two doses on the same day) to measure growth-hormone release, not to treat anything.
- Common practice is 80-160 mcg subcutaneous, once or twice daily, in a 4-8 week cycle with an equal-length break. It is not trial-established.
- The only studied doses are single doses (or two doses hours apart) in small groups of healthy adults, measuring hormone release, not muscle or recovery.
- The pharmacology studies used 1 mcg/kg intravenous and 1.5-3 mcg/kg subcutaneous; intranasal and oral routes were far less bioavailable.
- A second same-day dose lowered the growth-hormone response and lost the GHRH synergy. That is not evidence for frequent dosing.
Hexarelin has no FDA label and no approved product, so there is no prescribing dose to report. What exists is a small set of 1990s and 1996 pharmacology studies that gave healthy adults single doses to measure how much growth hormone, prolactin and cortisol they released. This page gives those doses as the papers report them and says what none of them tested.
US legal status - Research use only
Sold for laboratory research use only. Not approved by the FDA for human use, and cannot be lawfully marketed as a supplement or a medicine. Products sold this way are not made to pharmaceutical quality standards, and their contents are not verified by anyone.
Hexarelin dosage: the common protocol
Community and vendor dosing guides most often describe 80-160 mcg by subcutaneous injection, once or twice daily on an empty stomach, for a 4-8 week cycle with an equal-length break. This is common practice, not a dose any trial or regulator has established.
Common protocol
What is commonly used, not a dose established in trials. No regulator has set a dose for Hexarelin.
- Dose per administration
- 80-160 mcg
- How often
- once or twice daily (morning and/or before bed), on an empty stomach
- Route
- Subcutaneous injection
- Cycle length
- 4-8 weeks
- Break between cycles
- 4-8 weeks
- Timing
- Fasted - at least 2 hours after eating, 30-60 minutes before eating again.
- Commonly paired with
- CJC-1295
Guides describe short cycles (4-8 weeks) with an equal-length break because guides report the GH response drops with continuous use and returns after a washout; hexarelin is commonly co-injected with CJC-1295 for a larger combined GH pulse. A controlled human dose-response study (IV bolus, not the self-injected subcutaneous route used in practice) found GH release plateaus around 1.0 mcg/kg with an ED50 of 0.48 mcg/kg, and prolactin and cortisol also rise dose-dependently over that range - consistent with the practical 1-2 mcg/kg convention (about 80-160 mcg for an 80 kg adult) but not a direct validation of chronic subcutaneous dosing, cycling, or the CJC-1295 pairing.
Plan a cycle in the protocol builder or work out injection volume in the dosage calculator.
The common Hexarelin dose is 80-160 mcg, once or twice daily (morning and/or before bed), on an empty stomach. From a 2 mg vial mixed with 2 mL of bacteriostatic water, 100 mcg is 10 units (0.1 mL) on a U-100 insulin syringe.
Hexarelin 2 mg vial: units per dose
| Water added | Concentration | 1 unit = | 80 mcg | 100 mcg | 160 mcg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 mL | 2 mg/mL | 20 mcg | 4 units | 5 units | 8 units |
| 2 mL | 1 mg/mL | 10 mcg | 8 units | 10 units | 16 units |
| 3 mL | 0.67 mg/mL | 6.67 mcg | 12 units | 15 units | 24 units |
Units are on a standard U-100 insulin syringe (100 units = 1 mL), rounded to the nearest half unit - half-unit marks are on 0.3 mL syringes. Water volumes are examples: more water means more units per dose, not more doses per vial. For any other vial or dose, use the calculator below.
How many 2 mg vials a cycle takes
| Scenario | Dose | Doses a week | Weeks | Total | 2 mg vials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low end of the common protocol | 80 mcg | 7 | 4 | 2.24 mg | 2 |
| High end of the common protocol | 160 mcg | 14 | 8 | 17.92 mg | 9 |
Whole vials, rounded up. Plan a cycle with your own numbers in the protocol builder. Keep mixed vials cold and use them within the window in how long reconstituted peptides last; where to inject: subcutaneous injection sites.
If you already have a dose from elsewhere, the dosage calculator converts a concentration into an injection volume. It does not supply a dose.
Hexarelin doses used in human studies
Every dose below is a single test dose in a small group of healthy adults, used to measure a hormone-release curve. None was a treatment course, and none was given to anyone using hexarelin for muscle, fat loss or recovery.
How often, and for how long
Every dose above was given once, or twice on the same day to study repeat dosing. In the one study with a second dose, the growth-hormone response to the second bolus was measurably lower when it came 120 minutes after the first. The smaller reduction at a 60-minute gap was not statistically significant. At either interval, hexarelin’s synergy with growth-hormone-releasing hormone, present on the first dose, was lost by the second (Massoud 1996 - Massoud AF, Hindmarsh PC, Matthews DR et al. The effect of repeated administration of hexarelin, a growth hormone releasing peptide, and growth hormone releasing hormone on growth hormone responsivity. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 1996;44(5):555-62., in the references below).
That points toward reduced responsiveness with closely repeated dosing. It says nothing about a safe or effective frequency. No study has tested daily, twice-daily or weekly dosing over weeks or months, which is how people buying hexarelin as a research chemical use it today.
What is not established
- No dose for the marketed use. Nothing above was tested for muscle gain, body composition, fat loss or exercise recovery, the reasons hexarelin is sold today. All of it measured an acute hormone spike.
- No chronic regimen. No trial gave hexarelin daily, or more than twice in one day, over any extended period.
- No maximum safe dose. The highest doses above were chosen to map a dose-response curve for hormone release, not to find a safety ceiling.
- No established half-life or pharmacokinetic basis for spacing doses. As on the main hexarelin page, I couldn’t verify a human half-life against a primary source, so no dosing interval has an evidence-based basis.
- No verified product. Hexarelin sold today is an unregulated research chemical. Nobody independently verifies the identity, purity or concentration of a given vial, which makes any dose figure, studied or not, unreliable in practice.
Who should not use it
No trial defines an excluded population for hexarelin, because none of the studies above enrolled the people now buying it for muscle or recovery. It stimulates growth hormone, prolactin and cortisol release through the ghrelin receptor. Anyone with a history of a pituitary or hypothalamic condition, active malignancy, or known hypersensitivity to GHRP-class peptides has a specific reason for concern that no study population tested. Pregnancy is a reason to avoid any hormone-axis peptide entirely.
Hexarelin is sold as an unverified research chemical, not a quality-controlled medicine. This site does not consider it appropriate for anyone to use outside a research setting, rather than offering a specific list of exclusions.
Hexarelin side effects and risks
The cited studies report that hexarelin raises prolactin and cortisol alongside growth hormone (Massoud 1996 - Massoud AF, Hindmarsh PC, Brook CG. Hexarelin-induced growth hormone, cortisol, and prolactin release: a dose-response study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1996;81(12):4338-41., in the references below). That is a hormonal side-effect signal from acute studies, not a long-term safety profile. There is no long-term human safety data at any dose or frequency.
As a GHRP, hexarelin carries the class-level concerns of other growth-hormone secretagogues. Fluid retention, joint pain and insulin resistance are commonly reported with sustained growth-hormone elevation, and chronic excess is linked to hypertension and cardiac changes. None of this has been measured for hexarelin at the doses people use today.
The purity and identity of a purchased vial are unverified, which adds risk unrelated to the molecule itself. Hexarelin is widely reported to fall under WADA’s prohibited category for growth-hormone-releasing peptides. A tested athlete should check the current WADA list directly.
When to seek care
Signs of a serious allergic reaction are a medical emergency: facial or throat swelling, difficulty breathing, or a rapidly spreading rash. In the US, call 911. For a reaction that is not an emergency, or a possible exposure, Poison Control is on 1-800-222-1222.
Hexarelin dosage calculator
Preset to a 5 mg vial and 80 mcg, the low end of the common protocol. Enter your own vial size, water and dose to get the syringe units to draw.
Your vial
Printed on the vial. There is no standard size - enter what yours says.
This changes how much you draw - never how many doses the vial holds.
100 units per mL. 1 unit = 0.01 mL. This is what almost every insulin syringe sold is, in every barrel size.
Capacity only. A 1 mL U-100 syringe holds 100 units - the scale decides that, not the barrel.
Draw this much
= 0.03 mL on a 1 mL U-100 syringe
- Concentration
- 2,500 mcg/mL
- Exact volume
- 0.032 mL
- Dose you actually get(after rounding to the nearest mark)
- 75 mcg
- Doses per vial(unaffected by water volume)
- 62
- The nearest mark on the syringe gives 75 mcg, not 80 mcg - -6.2% off. Changing the water volume can make the target land on a readable mark.
Where to buy Hexarelin for research
Each vendor is checked against my vendor checklist.
1.Next Level PharmFeatured
2 mg vial
- No FDA warning letter found
- Names its testing lab
- Batch COAs published
- Takes card payment
Common questions
What is the usual hexarelin dose?
Community and vendor dosing guides most often describe 80-160 mcg by subcutaneous injection, once or twice a day on an empty stomach, often paired with CJC-1295. The cycle is 4-8 weeks followed by an equal-length break, because guides report the growth-hormone response fades with continuous use. That is common practice, not a dose established by any human trial. The studied doses came from single-dose pharmacology research (see the next question).
What is the studied hexarelin dosage?
The doses with a human study behind them are single pharmacology doses in healthy adults. They were intravenous 1 to 2 micrograms per kilogram, subcutaneous 1.5 to 3 micrograms per kilogram, intranasal 20 micrograms per kilogram, or oral 20 to 40 milligrams. They were test doses to measure growth-hormone release, not a treatment regimen, and none was tested for muscle or recovery outcomes.
How often was hexarelin dosed in the studies?
Most studies gave a single dose. One gave a second intravenous dose 60 or 120 minutes after the first. The growth-hormone response to the second dose was measurably lower at the 120-minute gap. The smaller drop at 60 minutes was not statistically significant. At either interval, an initial synergy with growth-hormone-releasing hormone was lost. No study tested daily or weekly dosing over weeks or months.
Is there a maximum safe hexarelin dose?
No study defines a maximum safe dose. The highest doses in the cited pharmacology studies were 2 mcg/kg intravenous, 3 mcg/kg subcutaneous, 20 mcg/kg intranasal and 40 mg oral. They were used to map a dose-response curve for hormone release, not to test safety limits.
How do I calculate a hexarelin dose from a vial?
This page does not supply a dose to reconstitute. If you already have a dose from elsewhere, the dosage calculator linked on this page turns a vial concentration into an injection volume. It converts units only and does not recommend a dose.
References (3 sources)
Bibliographic detail is fetched from PubMed, not written by me - so a citation here cannot drift from the paper it names. Study design comes from PubMed's own tags rather than my judgement.
- 1.Ghigo E, Arvat E, Gianotti L et al. Growth hormone-releasing activity of hexarelin, a new synthetic hexapeptide, after intravenous, subcutaneous, intranasal, and oral administration in man. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1994;78(3):693-8.StudyPMID 8126144
- 2.Massoud AF, Hindmarsh PC, Brook CG. Hexarelin-induced growth hormone, cortisol, and prolactin release: a dose-response study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1996;81(12):4338-41.Randomised trialPMID 8954038
- 3.Massoud AF, Hindmarsh PC, Matthews DR et al. The effect of repeated administration of hexarelin, a growth hormone releasing peptide, and growth hormone releasing hormone on growth hormone responsivity. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 1996;44(5):555-62.Randomised trialPMID 8762732