Trinity compound research profile
GHRP-2 Acetate
GHRP-2 (medical name: pralmorelin) is a small, lab-made chain of amino acids (a short peptide) designed to trigger growth hormone release. It's built to...
Research overview
GHRP-2 (medical name: pralmorelin) is a small, lab-made chain of amino acids (a short peptide) designed to trigger growth hormone release. It's built to copy the shape of a natural hunger hormone called ghrelin — the same hormone your stomach releases when you're hungry (PubChem). It was developed as a drug candidate and, notably, it's actually an approved medical test used in Japan to check if someone's pituitary gland is working properly.
Mechanism under study
GHRP-2 pretends to be the hunger hormone ghrelin. It docks onto the same receiver in your brain and pituitary gland that ghrelin normally uses, which does two things: it tells your pituitary gland to release a burst of growth hormone, and it also turns up your appetite (because that receiver is also involved in hunger signaling). It works especially well when combined with a GHRH-type peptide (like CJC-1295), because the two work through different "levers" that boost each other (Bowers et al., JCEM 2004).
Human evidence summary
This is one of the better-studied secretagogue peptides in humans. In a large study of 77 healthy people and 58 people with growth hormone deficiency, a shot of GHRP-2 caused a big spike in growth hormone within an hour in basically everyone healthy, while people with a true deficiency barely responded — this is exactly why it's used as a diagnostic test in Japan (Chihara et al., Eur J Endocrinol 2007). In another study, 17 older adults received a continuous drip under the skin for 30 days, and growth hormone stayed meaningfully elevated the whole time, with normal safety checks throughout (Bowers et al., JCEM 2004). A separate study confirmed it increases food intake in healthy men. However, no study has shown it improves muscle strength, body composition, or athletic performance, and a US drug-development program for it was discontinued.
Preclinical evidence summary
The existing profile data does not describe separate animal studies for GHRP-2 — the evidence base here is built almost entirely from the human research described above.
Source material
Use the linked publications and records to evaluate study design, population, limitations, and relevance.