5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule, not a peptide, and as of 2024 it finally has published pharmacokinetics — in mice. This guide gives the measured half-life by route, explains why the 3.5% oral bioavailability figure matters more than any of them for a product sold in capsules, and is explicit that no human study of any kind exists. Educational use only, not medical advice.
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Foundational Guide: Available Now
Educational use only — not medical advice. This guide summarizes information reported in published research and community practice for educational purposes. It is not medical advice and not a recommendation to use any compound. Any doses, schedules, or combinations shown are examples of what has been reported, not instructions for you. Many peptides described here are research compounds that are not FDA-approved for the uses discussed and may be investigational or restricted. Effects, risks, and legal status vary; individual needs and results vary. Consult a qualified, licensed healthcare professional before making any decision. Do not use this content to diagnose, treat, or dose yourself.
5-Amino-1MQ at a glance
What it is
5-Amino-1MQ (5-amino-1-methylquinolinium) — a small-molecule quinolinium compound and a selective inhibitor of NNMT. Despite being sold alongside this library's peptides, it is not a peptide: it has no amino acid chain.
Researched for
Preclinical metabolic, muscle and kidney research as an NNMT inhibitor. Six years of animal work across four organ systems, and still no human clinical trial — ClinicalTrials.gov returns zero registered studies.
Mechanism
Selective NNMT (nicotinamide N-methyltransferase) inhibition, proposed to preserve intracellular NAD+ and SAM and reduce fat-cell lipogenesis — demonstrated in cells and mice, never in humans.
Half-life
Measured in mice in 2024, not in humans: terminal half-life 6.3 h after intravenous dosing, 12.8–13.3 h subcutaneous, 14.8 h oral. Note that blood levels stayed above the enzyme-inhibiting concentration for only about 2–4 hours after injection, so half-life overstates the duration of target engagement.
Regulatory status
Not FDA-approved for any use; no registered clinical trial; not on any FDA bulk-drug-substance compounding list. Research/educational use only.
Educational reference. This page does not publish dose ranges or reconstitution arithmetic.
What it is / mechanism
5-Amino-1MQ is a selective, cell-permeable inhibitor of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), a cytosolic enzyme that methylates nicotinamide — consuming the methyl donor SAM in the process — to form 1-methylnicotinamide, diverting nicotinamide away from the NAD+ salvage pathway. The research rationale is that inhibiting NNMT preserves intracellular NAD+ and SAM, which in adipocyte models suppresses de novo lipogenesis. The 2018 paper that established the compound (PMID 29155147, Biochemical Pharmacology) did the groundwork properly: it tested membrane permeability using parallel artificial membrane and Caco-2 assays, and it tested selectivity against structurally related methyltransferases and against enzymes of the NAD+ salvage pathway, reporting that the methylquinolinium scaffold with a primary amine substitution was both highly permeable and selective — it did not inhibit the related SAM-dependent methyltransferases. Selectivity data of that kind is often missing for compounds in this market, and it is a point in this one's favour. The mechanism is real, published and specific. It has been demonstrated in cell and animal models and never in a human being.
Researched effects
The animal record has grown considerably since this compound entered the research-chemical market, and it now spans four organ systems. In diet-induced-obese mice (PMID 29155147, 2018), subcutaneous 5-Amino-1MQ at 20 mg/kg three times daily for about eleven days produced roughly 5.1% body-weight loss against continued weight gain in controls, about 35% less epididymal white fat, smaller adipocytes, lower plasma cholesterol and improved glucose tolerance, with no change in food intake. A 2019 study (PMID 30753815) reported that NNMT inhibition activates senescent muscle stem cells and improves the regenerative capacity of aged skeletal muscle. A 2024 study in Scientific Reports (PMID 38969654) treated 22-to-24-month-old mice with an NNMT inhibitor, intensive exercise, or both, and found that sedentary treated mice gained about 40% grip strength over sedentary controls while exercise alone gave 20% — and that the two were additive, reaching 60% combined. A 2024 study in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism (PMID 39161060) dosed diet-induced-obese mice once daily for 28–30 days at 10 and 32 mg/kg/day subcutaneously, reporting dose-dependent limits on body-weight and fat-mass gain, improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, attenuated hepatic steatosis, and normalised ALT and AST. Most recently, a 2026 paper in Cell Reports (PMID 41543936) implicated NNMT in tubular senescence and fibrosis in early chronic kidney disease and found selective inhibition protective in senescent kidney cells, organoids and in vivo. This is a substantial and broadening preclinical programme. Every result in it is from a mouse or a dish.
Evidence & regulatory status
Evidence: strong and expanding preclinical data across obesity, skeletal muscle, ageing and kidney models, from 2018 through 2026. Zero human clinical trials — a ClinicalTrials.gov search returns no registered study of 5-Amino-1MQ, and the two studies the registry returns for NNMT generally are a terminated hydroxychloroquine trial and an endometrial gene-expression study, neither of which tests an NNMT inhibitor.
The route problem, which is this compound's central issue: 5-Amino-1MQ is sold and taken almost entirely as oral capsules, and the 2024 pharmacokinetic work found oral bioavailability in mice of just 3.5%, with an oral peak concentration of 14.5 ng/mL against a mouse NNMT IC50 of 78 ng/mL. Oral dosing did not reach the concentration that inhibits the target enzyme. Every efficacy result for this compound comes from injection.
Why oral absorption fails, since it is not a formulation problem that better capsules would fix: the same study reports the compound is highly soluble — over 100 mg/mL in phosphate-buffered saline and over 10 mg/mL in simulated gastric fluid — and barely binds plasma protein (7%). It attributes the low oral bioavailability to limited intestinal absorption plus heavy first-pass metabolism, supported by a half-life under 7 minutes and clearance of 57.9 mL/min/kg in mouse hepatocytes.
Regulatory: not FDA-approved for any use and not on any FDA bulk-drug-substance compounding list. Mouse results should not be assumed to predict human outcomes at any dose or by any route — and here the species gap is compounded by a route gap.
Research timeline
Dated milestones taken from the primary records: the molecule's discovery, its first registered human study, the trials that shaped the evidence and the regulatory decisions. Each entry links to the record it comes from.
The paper that introduces the methylquinolinium NNMT inhibitors, the series 5-amino-1MQ belongs to, reports that they cross cell membranes, spare related enzymes, and that a potent member cut body weight and white fat in diet-induced obese mice without changing food intake. PMID 29155147
A mouse study names the inhibitor as 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium: given with a switch to a low-fat diet, it brought obese mice's weight and body fat to the level of lean mice, which the diet switch alone did not do in the same time, and the paper profiles the gut microbiome that resulted. PMID 35013352
A 28-day study in diet-induced obese mice reports that 5A1MQ limited weight and fat gain, improved glucose tolerance and reduced fatty liver, and publishes the compound's plasma pharmacokinetics in mice by intravenous, oral and under-the-skin dosing. PMID 39161060
Records checked Oct 4, 2026
Claims at a glance
The claims most often made about this compound, each with the strongest kind of evidence we found for it. The grade says what was studied, not whether the claim is true; the line beside it says what that study showed.
Causes fat lossAnimal studies only. In mice made obese on a high-fat diet, four weeks of treatment limited weight and fat-mass gain; no study has given it to people. PMID 39161060
Improves blood sugar controlAnimal studies only. The same obese mice handled a glucose load better and responded better to insulin; nothing has been measured in people. PMID 39161060
Raises NAD+ levelsCell or tissue studies only. Inhibitors from its chemical family raised NAD+ inside fat cells in a dish; NAD+ has never been measured in a person taking it. PMID 29155147
Boosts energy and enduranceNo study found. A PubMed search for the compound by name returned five records; none measured endurance or exercise capacity, in any species. PubMed search, Oct 7, 2026
Slows ageing and extends lifespanNo study found. No lifespan study exists in any species: none of the five PubMed records for the compound measured ageing or survival. PubMed search, Oct 7, 2026
Has no side effectsNo study found. No side effects are recorded because no person has been given it in a published study; in none of the five PubMed records was it given to a person. PubMed search, Oct 7, 2026
The reasoning behind each grade, study by study, is in this guide's Benefit & Outcome Review.
Grades checked Oct 7, 2026
A printable reference sheet with the compound's key facts, storage guidance and a vial record comes with All-Access Lifetime.
Half-life & pharmacokinetics
As of 2024 there is a measured half-life for this compound, and it is worth being precise about what was measured and in what. A pharmacokinetic study in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism (PMID 39161060) characterised 5-Amino-1MQ — written 5A1MQ there — in mice by three routes. After intravenous dosing at 5 mg/kg, peak concentration was 2,009 ng/mL with a terminal half-life of 6.3 hours, high plasma clearance of 101 mL/min/kg and a large steady-state volume of distribution of 39 L/kg. After subcutaneous dosing at 25 mg/kg, peak concentration reached 7,010 ng/mL within about 15 minutes, with terminal half-lives of 13.3 hours after a single dose and 12.8 hours after five once-daily doses. After oral dosing at 30 mg/kg, the terminal half-life was 14.8 hours but the peak was only 14.5 ng/mL, giving oral bioavailability of 3.5%. Two cautions belong with those numbers. The first is species: these are mouse figures, no human pharmacokinetic study exists, and human values cannot be assumed to match. The second is more interesting, because it is a case where the half-life is genuinely misleading on its own — blood levels stayed above the compound's mouse NNMT IC50 of 78 ng/mL for only about 2 to 4 hours after injection, so a 13-hour terminal half-life describes how long a decaying tail remains detectable, not how long the enzyme is actually inhibited. The oral route illustrates the point at its sharpest: it has the longest terminal half-life of the three, 14.8 hours, and never reached the inhibitory concentration at all. An earlier version of this page said no half-life or bioavailability data existed and advised treating any specific figure as unsourced. That was correct when written and is now out of date; the data exists, it is animal data, and it is reported above with its source.
Reported side effects & toxicology
No published human safety data exists, because no human study exists. Community-reported effects — nausea, GI discomfort, headache — come from anecdotal vendor and forum sources rather than controlled observation. The animal studies are reassuring as far as they go: the 2018 work reported no observed adverse effects at its tested dose, and the 2024 study reported normalised liver enzymes rather than raised ones, which is the opposite of a hepatic safety signal. Neither establishes human safety at any dose or by any route, and the compound has never been through the toxicology that would precede a first human trial.
Storage & handling
Unmixed powder: store cold and dry; long-term storage is typically at −20 °C, and the powder is stable refrigerated in the short term.
If reconstituted: refrigerate at about 2–8 °C, keep away from light, and do not freeze once mixed. Most commercial product is sold and used as oral capsules or powder rather than reconstituted.
References
Primary sources for this guide: PMID 39161060 (Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2024) for the mouse pharmacokinetics by intravenous, subcutaneous and oral routes, the 3.5% oral bioavailability, the 78 ng/mL mouse NNMT IC50, the hepatocyte stability data and the 28–30 day efficacy study; PMID 29155147 (Biochemical Pharmacology, 2018) for the original selectivity, permeability and diet-induced-obesity results; PMID 30753815 (Biochemical Pharmacology, 2019) for muscle stem cells and aged skeletal muscle; PMID 38969654 (Scientific Reports, 2024) for the NNMT-inhibition-plus-exercise study in aged mice; PMID 35013352 (Scientific Reports, 2022) for calorie restriction combined with NNMT inhibition; and PMID 41543936 (Cell Reports, 2026) for NNMT in tubular senescence and early chronic kidney disease. Registry status checked against ClinicalTrials.gov. An earlier version of this page stated that no pharmacokinetic data existed for this compound; that was accurate when written and has been superseded by the 2024 study rather than left in place.
Evidence File
The 5-Amino-1MQ Evidence File: Zero Trials, Zero Human Studies, and a Name PubMed Does Not Recognise
5-Amino-1MQ is sold as an oral fat-loss compound on the strength of a real and reasonably interesting scientific idea: inhibit the enzyme NNMT and mice on a high-fat diet lose fat. That finding exists, it was published in a respectable pharmacology journal, and this file does not dispute it. What this file establishes is the distance between that mouse result and everything claimed downstream of it. There are no registered clinical trials of this compound anywhere in the world, under any of its names. There are no published human studies of any kind. And the name the market prints on the bottle — 5-amino-1MQ — returns zero results in PubMed, because the literature does not call it that. Every search establishing those claims is named below.
0 registered trials across 4 named search terms
0 published human studies of any design
"5-amino-1MQ" returns 0 PubMed records; the chemical name returns 3
The foundational obesity result is from mice, 2018
What it is, and why the mechanism is genuinely interesting
The registry: nothing, under every name it has
The name problem: what PubMed actually recognises
The foundational study, and exactly what it showed
The dose question, and where the numbers on product pages come from
What would change this assessment
6 more sections in the Evidence File for 5-Amino-1MQ
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for 5-Amino-1MQ for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
The sections above this one stay free to read without an account.
Sourcing File
The 5-Amino-1MQ Sourcing File: A Cation Sold by Salt Weight, Where Nearly Half the Bottle May Be Counterion
This compound has a sourcing problem that is arithmetic rather than analytical, and it is larger than for anything else in this library. 5-Amino-1MQ is a quinolinium cation — a permanently charged species that cannot exist on its own and must be supplied as a salt. The molecular weight quoted on almost every product page, 159.21, is the mass of the cation alone. If the material is the iodide, which is the form the literature uses, then the salt is only 55.6% active species by mass and a nominal 50 mg dose delivers about 27.8 mg. Which counterion is present changes that figure by twenty-six percentage points, and most certificates never say. This file works the arithmetic for each plausible salt and shows what a certificate has to state for the number on the label to mean anything.
MW 159.21 is the CATION only — C10H11N2+, CID 950107
As the iodide: 55.6% cation, 44.4% counterion by mass
Counterion choice swings active content from 55.6% to 81.8%
50 mg of the iodide salt carries ~22 mg of iodide
The identity numbers, and the plus sign everyone drops
The arithmetic, for every plausible salt
The iodide consequence nobody mentions
What a 5-Amino-1MQ certificate must show
Dose forms, storage, and the problems this compound does not have
How 5-Amino-1MQ specifically gets misrepresented
6 more sections in the Sourcing File for 5-Amino-1MQ
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for 5-Amino-1MQ for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
The sections above this one stay free to read without an account.
Benefit & Outcome Review
The 5-Amino-1MQ Benefit and Outcome Review: Four Claims, One Mouse Study, No People
This is the shortest benefit review in the library, and the brevity is the finding. Every claim made for 5-Amino-1MQ traces to preclinical work — one 2018 mouse paper doing most of the load-bearing — and none has been tested in a human being. This review still takes each claim in turn, because the distinctions between them matter: some are reasonable extrapolations from a real result in an accepted animal model, and some are not supported even in mice. Where a claim has genuine rodent evidence behind it, this review says so. Where it has none at all, it says that too.
4 marketed claims assessed
0 supported by human data of any kind
1 has direct rodent evidence; 3 are inferred from mechanism
0 adverse events reported — because no one has been studied
How each claim is graded
Claim 1 — Causes fat loss
Claim 2 — Raises NAD+
Claim 3 — Increases energy, endurance or metabolic rate
Claim 4 — Anti-ageing or longevity effects
Safety, and the specific problem with a clean record
The honest summary
7 more sections in the Benefit & Outcome Review for 5-Amino-1MQ
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for 5-Amino-1MQ for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
Quick answers about guide scope, access, and educational use context.
What is 5-Amino-1MQ's half-life?
In mice, measured in 2024: 6.3 hours after intravenous dosing, 13.3 hours after a single subcutaneous dose (12.8 hours with repeated daily dosing), and 14.8 hours after oral dosing. There is still no human pharmacokinetic study, so no human half-life exists. One caveat matters more than the numbers: blood concentrations stayed above the level that actually inhibits NNMT for only about 2–4 hours after injection. The terminal half-life measures how long a residual tail stays detectable, not how long the target is engaged, and for this compound the two are very different.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ work when taken orally?
The one study that measured it directly says it barely enters circulation. In mice, oral bioavailability was 3.5%, and the oral peak blood concentration was 14.5 ng/mL against a mouse NNMT IC50 of 78 ng/mL — meaning the oral route never reached the concentration that inhibits the target enzyme. Every efficacy result reported for this compound, in every study, comes from injection. Since it is sold and consumed almost entirely as oral capsules, this is the most consequential thing on the page. It is also not a solubility problem that a better capsule would solve: the compound dissolves readily in both buffer and simulated gastric fluid, and the authors attribute the low bioavailability to poor intestinal absorption plus rapid first-pass metabolism in the liver, where its half-life in hepatocytes was under 7 minutes.
Is 5-Amino-1MQ a peptide?
No. Despite being sold in this peptide guide library, 5-Amino-1MQ is a small-molecule quinolinium compound with no amino acid chain — chemically distinct from every other guide in this library. That has a practical consequence for verification: the analytical methods used to confirm a peptide's identity, such as peptide mapping, do not apply, and a certificate of analysis for this compound should be read as a small-molecule report.
Has 5-Amino-1MQ been tested in humans?
No. There is no published human clinical trial and no registered one — a ClinicalTrials.gov search returns zero studies of this compound. All efficacy data comes from mice, now spanning obesity, aged skeletal muscle, the microbiome and early chronic kidney disease between 2018 and 2026. The preclinical case has strengthened considerably over those years; the human case has not started.
Are the commonly cited oral doses based on human research?
No. The oral amounts quoted in community sources are not derived from any published study. The animal research used subcutaneous injection — 20 mg/kg three times daily in 2018, and 10 or 32 mg/kg once daily in 2024 — a different route, species and dosing basis. Given the 3.5% oral bioavailability measured in mice, the route difference is not a technicality: it is the difference between the amount studied and a small fraction of it.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ have drug interactions?
No interaction studies of any kind have been published, so there is no interaction profile to report — not a clean one and not a concerning one. What can be said is mechanistic: the compound inhibits NNMT, an enzyme in nicotinamide and NAD+ metabolism, so any theoretical interaction would most plausibly involve that pathway. The 2024 pharmacokinetic work adds one relevant observation — the compound undergoes heavy first-pass hepatic metabolism in mice — which is the kind of property that tends to matter for interactions, though no study has examined which enzymes are involved or what else they handle. That is reasoning from mechanism, not evidence, and it is not a basis for assuming either safety or risk alongside anything else.
Is there a 5-Amino-1MQ certificate of analysis or test report?
A certificate of analysis describes one specific batch — identity, purity by HPLC and mass confirmation — and is supplied by whoever produced the material, not by this guide. Because 5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule rather than a peptide, it should be read as a small-molecule report: the mass is straightforward to check against the compound's formula, and there is no peptide-mapping section to look for. Our explainer on reading a peptide certificate of analysis covers which fields on a report are checkable and which are not.
Is 5-Amino-1MQ FDA-approved or on an FDA compounding list?
No. It is not FDA-approved for any use and is not on any FDA bulk-drug-substance compounding list. It has no registered clinical trial, which means it has not entered the human development pathway at all.
Why do vendor pages quote confident human half-life and bioavailability numbers?
Because numbers now exist and the species label tends to fall off them. Since 2024 there are real pharmacokinetic figures for this compound — 6.3, 12.8–13.3 and 14.8 hours by three routes, and 3.5% oral bioavailability — and every one of them was measured in mice. A figure quoted without its species is not necessarily invented, but it is being presented as something it is not. The test to apply is simple: ask which study a number came from and what was dosed. For this compound the honest answer is always a mouse, and the bioavailability figure is the one least likely to be quoted at all.
Compliance and trust notes
Educational content only; no personalized health or outcome claims.
No personalized use recommendation outputs.
Use this material for general learning and research-context literacy.
A certificate of analysis (COA) is a laboratory’s report on one sample of one batch. The single most useful thing to know about it is that purity and identity are two separate results that fail in different ways. A high purity figure says the sample was mostly one substance; it does not say that substance was 5-Amino-1MQ. Identity — normally a mass-spectrometry result matching the expected molecular weight — is what establishes what the material actually is, and a certificate reporting purity alone has not answered that question.
Two further limits are worth holding onto. Mass per vial is its own test: a vial can be 99% pure and still contain less material than the label claims. And sterility, endotoxin, heavy metals and residual solvent screening are separately commissioned tests, usually priced individually — so a “third-party tested” badge asserts none of them unless the certificate names them. Check that the batch or lot number on the document matches the vial in front of you; an unmatched certificate describes someone else’s material.
Specific to 5-Amino-1MQ
5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule, not a peptide, so it is analysed against a different reference standard than the rest of this library and "peptide purity" language on a certificate is a sign the document was templated rather than matched to the material. Content by mass matters more than usual here because reported research amounts are large relative to the vial.
Medibact does not test, endorse or resell peptides, and publishes no rating of any laboratory. How to read a peptide certificate of analysis walks through the document section by section, and what each COA field establishes covers the field-by-field detail and the laboratories that publish their methods.
You’ll need bacteriostatic water
The diluent for reconstituting 5-Amino-1MQ
Reconstitution is volume arithmetic — it assumes a lyophilized vial is dissolved in bacteriostatic water, which is sterile water preserved with 0.9% benzyl alcohol. The preservative is what allows a vial to be entered more than once; plain sterile water carries none and is single-entry by design. Medibact supplies USP-grade Bacteriostatic Water for Injection in a 30 mL multi-dose vial, produced in an FDA-registered U.S. facility and shipped from the United States, for research use only. One 30 mL vial covers 30 reconstitutions at 1 mL each, 15 at 2 mL, or 10 at 3 mL — division only, not a dosing recommendation.
Educational use only — not medical advice. This guide summarizes information reported in published research and community practice for educational purposes. It is not medical advice and not a recommendation to use any compound. Any doses, schedules, or combinations shown are examples of what has been reported, not instructions for you. Many peptides described here are research compounds that are not FDA-approved for the uses discussed and may be investigational or restricted. Effects, risks, and legal status vary; individual needs and results vary. Consult a qualified, licensed healthcare professional before making any decision. Do not use this content to diagnose, treat, or dose yourself.
