Search 5-Amino-1MQ side effects and you will find tidy lists. None of them come from a trial. Human trials of this compound number zero, so the adverse event table they would be drawn from does not exist.
The short answer. Human trials of 5-Amino-1MQ number zero, so no human side effect record exists.
- The longest published mouse dosing ran 11 days, at 20 mg/kg per injection, three times daily.
- No LD50, chronic dosing or reproductive toxicity study for this molecule appears in the literature.
- One measured off-target effect exists: a distinct gut microbiome in treated mice, reported in Scientific Reports in 2022.
5-Amino-1MQ has zero published human trials. So there is no human side effect list. The longest published mouse dosing ran 11 days. No dedicated toxicology study has been published. The known risks are theoretical, not measured. Unknown is not the same as safe.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ have known side effects?
Nobody knows. That is the answer, and it is not evasion.
A side effect list comes from a trial. Someone gives the compound to people, watches them, and writes down what happened. For 5-Amino-1MQ that has never been done. PubMed-indexed human trials: zero. Registered human trials: zero.
So there is no adverse event table, no dropout rate, and no dose-limiting toxicity on record.
- No Phase I. The first-in-human safety study every drug needs has not been run.
- No published toxicology. We found no LD50 work, no chronic dosing study and no reproductive toxicity data for this molecule.
- No human pharmacokinetics. Nobody has published how long it stays in a person.
- No safety reporting system. It is not an approved drug, so no agency collects complaints about it.
Unknown is not the same as clean. A compound with no side effect list is not a compound without side effects. It is a compound nobody has watched.
The 5-Amino-1MQ complete guide covers what the molecule is and where it came from.
What the animal studies actually observed
The animal record is small, and it was built to measure fat, not harm.
The 2018 Biochemical Pharmacology paper from Neelakantan and colleagues is the main one. Obese mice received 20 mg/kg per injection, three times a day, for 11 days. Body weight fell about 5%. One fat depot dropped roughly 35%.
Selective and membrane-permeable small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase reverse high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice.
Neelakantan et al., Biochemical Pharmacology, 2018 (paper title)Read the design, not the headline. Eleven days is the whole observation window in that study. Nothing longer has been published. Weight loss was the endpoint, so weight loss is what got measured.
A 2022 Scientific Reports paper by Dimet-Wiley and colleagues did find one clear off-target change. NNMT inhibition combined with a reduced-calorie diet left diet-induced obese mice with a distinct gut microbiome. Whether that shift is good, bad or neutral in a human is not known. It is simply a change the compound produced that nobody was looking for.
The dosage page sets out exactly what those studies administered, and the fat-loss research page explains why the diet sits inside the result.
The questions the mechanism raises
5-Amino-1MQ blocks NNMT. That enzyme takes nicotinamide and adds a methyl group, using SAM as the donor. Block it and two things change at once.
- SAM is spared. SAM is the cell's main methyl donor. Methylation controls gene expression. A larger pool is not automatically harmless.
- Nicotinamide builds up. NNMT is a main clearance route for it. More nicotinamide is the intended effect, and it is also an unstudied one in people.
- MNA falls. Methylnicotinamide, the product, is not just waste. It has signaling roles of its own.
Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase: more than a vitamin B3 clearance enzyme.
Pissios, Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2017 (paper title)That title is the caution in one line. An enzyme with several jobs, blocked in a whole body, will do more than one thing. Kraus and colleagues showed in Nature in 2014 that knocking NNMT down protects mice from diet-induced obesity. That is genetic knockdown in a mouse, not a vial in a person.
Our NNMT mechanism page walks the reaction through step by step.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ cause cancer?
No study has shown that. The published cancer work points the other way, in models.
A 2024 paper in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer found NNMT in cancer-associated fibroblasts drove tumor progression and resistance to immunotherapy in urothelial bladder cancer. Targeting it improved the response in that model. A 2021 paper in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology reported an NNMT inhibitor was anti-proliferative in HeLa cells.
So the oncology signal so far runs toward inhibition being useful, not harmful. Two limits matter. These are cell lines and mice. And a compound that alters methylation across a whole body has not been followed in any human for any length of time, which is the observation that would actually answer this question.
What a real safety record looks like
It helps to see the gap next to compounds that have been measured in people.
| Compound | Human safety data | What it contains |
|---|---|---|
| 5-Amino-1MQ | None published | No adverse event table of any kind |
| NMN | Randomized, placebo-controlled trial (GeroScience, 2023) | Dose-ranging safety endpoints in healthy middle-aged adults |
| Tirzepatide | Phase III, SURMOUNT-1 | Full adverse event reporting; 20–25% body-weight reduction |
NMN is the useful row. It sits in the same NAD pathway conversation and it is sold the same way. Somebody still ran a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on it. That is what the evidence bar looks like when it is cleared. For 5-Amino-1MQ the count of such trials is still zero.
A 2026 Sports Medicine review by Mendias and Awan makes the same point across the unapproved peptide market generally: the safety claims circulating in that market outrun the data behind them.
What you can actually verify before buying
If the toxicology does not exist, the only things left to check are identity and purity. Those are documents, and they can be read.
- It is not a peptide. 5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule at about 159 g/mol. Sellers group it with peptides; the chemistry is different.
- Ask for a batch certificate of analysis. Identity, purity and the method used. Our COA guide explains how to read one.
- Check handling. See storage temperature for what degradation actually looks like.
None of that tells you what the compound does in a person. It only tells you what is in the vial. For research use, that is still the question you can answer. See also the benefits page and before and after.
What to know now
- Human trials of 5-Amino-1MQ number zero, so no human side effect record exists.
- The longest published mouse dosing ran 11 days, at 20 mg/kg per injection, three times daily.
- No LD50, chronic dosing or reproductive toxicity study for this molecule appears in the literature.
- One measured off-target effect exists: a distinct gut microbiome in treated mice, reported in Scientific Reports in 2022.
- Published cancer work points toward NNMT inhibition being useful in models, not toward tumor promotion.
- NMN, in the same pathway, has a randomized placebo-controlled human trial. 5-Amino-1MQ does not.
What we're watching
The thing that would change this page is a registered Phase I trial with a published adverse event table. As of 2026, none has been run. Until then, every side effect list for this compound is an extrapolation from mouse metabolism, not an observation.
Frequently asked questions
Is 5-Amino-1MQ safe?
There is no basis to call it safe or unsafe. Safety is a measurement, and the measurement has not been taken. Published human trials number zero, so no adverse events have been collected in people.
What side effects were seen in the animal studies?
The published mouse studies were efficacy studies. They reported body weight, fat mass and, in the 2022 Scientific Reports paper, a shift in the gut microbiome. We found no dedicated toxicology study of 5-Amino-1MQ reporting organ damage, LD50 or long-term effects.
Does 5-Amino-1MQ affect the liver?
NNMT is expressed at high levels in the liver, where it clears excess nicotinamide. Blocking it there is the intended mechanism. Whether that changes liver function in a human has not been studied and no human liver data has been published.
Is 5-Amino-1MQ FDA approved?
No. It is not approved for any use in any country. It is a preclinical tool compound used to study NNMT biology, and it is sold for research use only.
How long has 5-Amino-1MQ been given to a living animal?
The main published study dosed mice for 11 days. That is the length of the longest observation window we could find. No longer-term dosing study has been published.
Does it interact with NMN or other NAD supplements?
No interaction study exists. Both sit in the NAD pathway, so an interaction is plausible on paper. Nobody has tested the combination in animals or people, and the site does not suggest combining them.
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