Tesamorelin is a stabilized analogue of the growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF) that induces growth hormone (GH) in a specific and physiological manner. To date, clinical studies suggest that Tesamorelin reduces visceral fat in HIV-infected patients with abdominal lipo-hypertrophy as well as reducing abdominal fat in all individuals studied.

A peptide that increases growth hormone release improved several measures of cognitive function in cognitively normal and mildly impaired older individuals in a placebo-controlled trial, a researcher said here. Scores on standard tests of executive function and verbal memory were significantly higher in participants given tesamorelin (Egrifta), a synthetic analog of growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH), in a 20-week trial, according to Laura D. Baker, PhD.. Participants taking the drug in the 78-person trial also reported greater subjective improvement in cognition relative to the placebo group.

In animal studies, GHRH administration improved biomarkers of brain function as well as performance on cognition tests. And a 2006 clinical trial with GHRH found small but significant improvements in cognitive test scores in healthy older adults. In the current study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, 41 cognitively normal adults and 37 with mild cognitive impairment were randomized to placebo or tesamorelin at 1 mg/day subcutaneously.

Mean participant age was 66 to 70 among the four groups. Scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination averaged 29 for the normal participants and 28 for those with mild impairments. Normal and impaired participants differed more at baseline on a test of story recall, with mean scores of 54 and 44, respectively. Tesamorelin appeared to have a protective effect relative to placebo among the cognitively impaired patients on this measure. At the final evaluation, scores declined an average of five points with placebo, whereas those assigned to tesamorelin had a mean decline of less than one point