Most 5-Amino-1MQ benefits lists borrow from four papers. Three ran in mice, one ran in a dish, and one of them never gave the compound at all. Human trials number zero.
The short answer. Every fat-loss claim for 5-Amino-1MQ traces to mouse studies, chiefly Neelakantan et al., 2018.
- The 2014 Nature obesity paper used gene knockdown in mice, not this compound.
- The NAD+ claim comes from enzyme biology reviews, not from any trial of the vial.
- Muscle, energy and longevity claims have no published study of 5-Amino-1MQ behind them at all.
5-Amino-1MQ blocks an enzyme called NNMT. It is a small molecule, not a peptide. The fat-loss claim comes from mice. One 2018 study saw about 35% off one fat depot. Human trials number zero. Most other listed benefits belong to the enzyme, not the vial.
Where does each 5-Amino-1MQ benefit claim come from?
Every benefit on a sales page has a parent. Sometimes the parent is a mouse study. Sometimes it is a cell line. Sometimes it is a review article about an enzyme, with no compound in it at all.
Here is the map. Read the third column before the first.
| Claimed benefit | Paper it traces to | What was actually measured |
|---|---|---|
| Fat loss | Neelakantan et al., Biochemical Pharmacology, 2018 | Mice on a high-fat diet, 11 days of injections |
| Fat loss plus dieting | Dimet-Wiley et al., Scientific Reports, 2022 | Obese mice, with a reduced calorie diet added |
| Protection from obesity | Kraus et al., Nature, 2014 | Gene knockdown in mice. No 5-Amino-1MQ given |
| “Raises NAD+” | Pissios, Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2017 | A review of enzyme biology. No human dosing |
| Anti-tumor effect | Yang et al., J ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 2024 | Bladder tumor model in mice |
| Anti-cancer activity | Akar et al., 2021 | HeLa cells in a dish |
| Muscle growth, energy, longevity | No study found | Nothing |
Not one row of that table is a person. As of 2026 there are zero PubMed-indexed human trials of 5-Amino-1MQ. The complete guide tracks that count.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ cause fat loss?
In mice, one study says yes. That study is Neelakantan and colleagues, published in Biochemical Pharmacology in 2018.
It gave obese mice 20 mg/kg per injection, three times a day, for 11 days. Body weight fell about 5%. One white fat depot fell about 35%. That is the source of nearly every fat-loss claim you will read.
Selective and membrane-permeable small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase reverse high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice.
Title of Neelakantan et al., Biochemical Pharmacology, 2018The 2022 Scientific Reports paper is the other one people cite. It paired NNMT inhibition with a reduced calorie diet in obese mice. So the diet sits inside that result. You cannot pull the compound out of it and call the whole effect the drug’s.
- Species: mouse, both times.
- Duration: days, not months.
- Route: injection in the study, capsules in much of the market.
- Diet: controlled by the researchers, and part of the effect.
For scale, tirzepatide and semaglutide produced 20–25% body-weight reduction in Phase III trials in humans. That is a different kind of evidence, not just a bigger number. Our fat-loss research page lays the two side by side.
Is the NAD+ benefit real?
The mechanism is real. The benefit is not measured.
NNMT takes nicotinamide and adds a methyl group, using SAM as the donor. Block the enzyme and you spare SAM, and you leave more nicotinamide free to re-enter the NAD+ salvage pathway. That model is laid out in Pissios’ 2017 review.
Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase: more than a vitamin B3 clearance enzyme.
Title of Pissios, Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2017That review is about an enzyme. It is not a trial of a product. When a page says 5-Amino-1MQ “boosts NAD+ in humans,” the claim belongs to the pathway, not to the vial. Our mechanism page walks the chemistry.
Compare the neighbor. NMN, which feeds the same pathway, has a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-ranging trial in healthy middle-aged adults, published in GeroScience in 2023. Agree with it or not, that is a human dataset. 5-Amino-1MQ has none.
5-Amino-1MQ
The compound discussed here, supplied as a research compound with a certificate of analysis matched to the lot.
What about muscle, energy and longevity?
Those three are the weakest claims on the list, because no study of the compound reports them.
NNMT does run high in muscle wasting, so the interest is not made up. But interest in an enzyme is not a measured outcome in an animal, let alone a person. There is no published strength trial, no lean-mass trial, and no lifespan study of 5-Amino-1MQ.
Also worth saying plainly: 5-Amino-1MQ is not a peptide. Its molecular weight is about 159 g/mol. It is a methylquinolinium salt sold beside peptides, which is how it inherits peptide marketing language.
Two 2026 reviews describe how fast unapproved compounds move through sport and anti-aging markets: Mendias and Awan in Sports Medicine, on peptide therapies for musculoskeletal injury and performance, and Coutinho and colleagues on peptide-analog use in recreational and professional sport. Mavrych and colleagues cover the same pressure in gerontology. The pattern they describe is demand arriving years before data.
The strongest data is about tumors, not weight
This is the part vendor pages skip, and it is the most interesting evidence in the file.
In 2024, a Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer paper looked at NNMT in cancer-associated fibroblasts in urothelial bladder cancer. Blocking the enzyme improved response in an immunotherapy model, and tumor growth dropped significantly.
NAD metabolism enzyme NNMT in cancer-associated fibroblasts drives tumor progression and resistance to immunotherapy by modulating macrophages in urothelial bladder cancer.
Title of Yang et al., Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 2024A 2021 paper in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found an NNMT inhibitor slowed HeLa cell growth in culture. Cells in a dish. Not a patient.
- What this supports: NNMT as a target worth studying in oncology.
- What it does not support: any benefit claim for a research vial bought online.
- Why it matters anyway: a compound active in tumor biology is a compound with unmapped effects elsewhere.
What is actually unknown
Short list, and it is the important one.
No human pharmacokinetics. No human safety data. No published oral bioavailability in people. No long-term animal toxicology in the public record that we could find. No dose that has ever been tested in a person, which is why our dosage page reports the mouse protocol and stops there.
What you can check yourself is the vial. Ask for the certificate of analysis with a matching lot number, and confirm identity and purity by HPLC and mass spec. That is a document, not a promise. The before and after page shows what happens when people skip that step and trust photos instead.
5-Amino-1MQ
Research-use-only material, sold by the vial with batch documentation. Check the certificate of analysis against the batch you receive.
What to know now
- Every fat-loss claim for 5-Amino-1MQ traces to mouse studies, chiefly Neelakantan et al., 2018.
- The 2014 Nature obesity paper used gene knockdown in mice, not this compound.
- The NAD+ claim comes from enzyme biology reviews, not from any trial of the vial.
- Muscle, energy and longevity claims have no published study of 5-Amino-1MQ behind them at all.
- The strongest evidence is in tumor models, including a 2024 bladder cancer paper.
- Published human trials of 5-Amino-1MQ: zero, as of 2026.
What we're watching
Watch for pages citing Kraus et al., Nature 2014 as proof the vial works. That study knocked down the NNMT gene in mice with an antisense oligonucleotide. It never administered 5-Amino-1MQ.
Frequently asked questions
Does 5-Amino-1MQ work for fat loss in humans?
Nobody has published a human trial, so there is no answer from data. The evidence is mouse work. In the 2018 Biochemical Pharmacology study, obese mice given the inhibitor for 11 days lost about 5% of body weight and about 35% of one fat depot. The 2022 Scientific Reports follow-up added a reduced calorie diet, so diet is part of that result.
How much 5-Amino-1MQ did studies use?
We report, we do not advise. The 2018 mouse study administered 20 mg/kg per injection, three times daily, for 11 days. Mouse milligrams per kilogram do not convert to a human dose, and no human dose has ever been tested or published.
Is 5-Amino-1MQ a peptide?
No. It is a small molecule of about 159 g/mol that inhibits the enzyme NNMT. It is sold by peptide vendors, which is why it is described in peptide language, but it is not made of amino acid chains.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ raise NAD+ in people?
Unmeasured. The pathway argument is sound: blocking NNMT spares SAM and frees nicotinamide for the NAD+ salvage route. But that comes from enzyme reviews such as Pissios, 2017. No published study has measured NAD+ in humans after 5-Amino-1MQ.
Is 5-Amino-1MQ safe?
There is no human safety dataset to cite. No published clinical pharmacokinetics, no clinical adverse event record, and no long-term human toxicology. NNMT is also active in tumor biology, which means the compound's effects outside fat tissue are not mapped.
Why do vendor pages list so many benefits?
Because NNMT sits in a busy pathway. Anything the enzyme touches, from fat storage to NAD+ to tumor growth, can be written as a benefit of blocking it. That is a claim about the enzyme, not a result from the compound.
References
- Neelakantan, H., Vance, V., Wetzel, M. D., et al. (2018). Selective and membrane-permeable small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase reverse high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice. Biochemical Pharmacology, 147, 141–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2017.11.007
- Dimet-Wiley, A., Wu, Q., Wiley, J. T., et al. (2022). Reduced calorie diet combined with NNMT inhibition establishes a distinct microbiome in DIO mice. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 484. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03670-5
- Kraus, D., Yang, Q., Kong, D., et al. (2014). Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase knockdown protects against diet-induced obesity. Nature, 508(7495), 258–262. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13198
- Pissios, P. (2017). Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase: More than a vitamin B3 clearance enzyme. Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 28(5), 340–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2017.02.004
- Yang, M., Wang, B., Hou, W., et al. (2024). NAD metabolism enzyme NNMT in cancer-associated fibroblasts drives tumor progression and resistance to immunotherapy by modulating macrophages in urothelial bladder cancer. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 12(7), e009281. https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2024-009281
- Akar, S., Duran, T., Azzawri, A. A., Koçak, N., Çelik, Ç., & Yıldırım, H. (2021). Small molecule inhibitor of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase shows anti-proliferative activity in HeLa cells. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 41(8), 1240–1245. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443615.2020.1854696
- Yi, L., Maier, A. B., Tao, R., et al. (2023). The efficacy and safety of β-nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) supplementation in healthy middle-aged adults: A randomized, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, dose-dependent clinical trial. GeroScience, 45(1), 29–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-022-00705-1
- Jastreboff, A. M., Aronne, L. J., Ahmad, N. N., et al. (2022). Tirzepatide once weekly for the treatment of obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 387(3), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2206038
- Mendias, C. L., & Awan, T. M. (2026). Safety and efficacy of approved and unapproved peptide therapies for musculoskeletal injuries and athletic performance. Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-026-02437-0
- Coutinho, L. F. D., De Oliveira Neves, L. F., & Camilo, R. P. (2026). A new era of doping? Use of peptide and peptide-analog drugs in recreational and professional sport and bodybuilding. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. https://doi.org/10.23736/S0022-4707.26.17773-1
- Mavrych, V., Shypilova, I., & Bolgova, O. (2026). Therapeutic peptides in gerontology: Mechanisms and applications for healthy aging. Frontiers in Aging, 7, 1790247. https://doi.org/10.3389/fragi.2026.1790247