5-Amino-1MQ: Status, Evidence and Sellers

5-amino-1MQ is not a peptide. It is a small synthetic molecule, 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium, that blocks an enzyme called nicotinamide N-methyltransferase, or NNMT [3]. It is sold beside peptides, often as capsules, for fat loss and metabolism.

Everything known about what it does comes from cells and rodents. In obese mice injected with it for 11 days, it caused weight loss of about 5% while untreated mice kept gaining, and their food intake did not change [1]. No study in people has been published, and ClinicalTrials.gov lists no human trial of it.

FDA has already treated it as ineligible for 503B compounding, citing it in a January 2026 warning letter to an outsourcing facility [5]. It has no FDA approval, and it is not part of the October 28, 2026 HHS peptide policy.

NNMT attaches a methyl group to nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, using a molecule called SAM as the donor, and tissues such as fat and muscle can carry too much of it in disease [3]. The idea behind blocking it is that the cell keeps more nicotinamide for making NAD+, a molecule central to energy metabolism, and more of the methyl donor SAM. In fat cells grown in the lab, NNMT inhibitors from the same chemical family did raise NAD+ and SAM and reduced fat production [1].

A 2026 review of the field said NNMT inhibitors have so far been held back by weak target engagement, poor bioavailability and unknown safety, and that newer compounds are trying to fix those problems [4]. 5-amino-1MQ is one of the earlier compounds.

The best-known study gave diet-induced obese mice three injections a day for 11 days. Treated mice lost 2.0 g, about 5.1% of body weight, while control mice gained 0.6 g, and white fat mass fell by about 35% with no change in how much the mice ate [1]. A later mouse study found that the inhibitor plus a switch to a lean diet produced more fat loss than the diet switch alone; two of its authors were the founder and an employee of a company developing NNMT inhibitors [2].

Those studies injected the compound. Much of what is sold to people is a capsule, and absorption by mouth has been studied in rats [3]. No published study has given it to a human, by any route.

Grade D: sold for fat loss with no human data at all. Our evidence review covers the mouse studies, the muscle-aging work and FDA's warning letters in more depth.

There is no human dose of 5-amino-1MQ, approved or studied. The mouse studies used injected doses by body weight that were chosen for mice [1], and they do not convert into the capsule strengths sold online. This page gives no dose.

In the 2018 mouse study the authors saw no observable adverse effects over 11 days [1]. That is the extent of the safety record. Nothing is known about its effects in people, over weeks or months, or alongside other medicines, and the 2026 review lists unknown safety as one of the obstacles for this class of drugs [4].

WADA's 2026 Prohibited List does not name 5-amino-1MQ, but its S0 class bans pharmacological substances with no current government approval for human use, giving drugs still in preclinical or clinical development as an example [6]. Athletes should treat it as covered unless their anti-doping organization says otherwise.